^v^ MACPHERSON, 

\ 



THE GREAT 



CONFEDERATE PHILOSOPHER 



SOUTHERN BLOWER 



A KECOKD 



HIS PHILOSOPHY, HIS CAREER AS A WARRIOR, TRAVELLER, 

CLERGYMAN, POET, AND NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER, HIS 

DEATH, RESUSCITATION, AND SUBSEQUENT 

ELECTION TO THE OFFICE OF 



GOYERNOR OF LOUISIANA. 



ALFRED C. HILLS, 

EDITOR OF THE I'EW ORLEANS ERA. 

NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER, 

(STJOCESSOR TO C. S. FRANCIS & CO.,)- 

52 2 BROADWAY. 

MDCCOLXIV. 



Copy, 



1 

48 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S64, 

By JAMES MILLER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
tlie Southern District of New York. 



TO 

MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANIEL P. BANKS, 

COMMANDER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE GTJLF, 

THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 

WHO, BY HIS OWN LABOR AND GENIUS, RAISED KBISELF FROM THE 
OBSCURE AND HUMBLE WALKS OF LIFE, TO ADORN SOME OP THE 
MOST HONORABLE CIVIL AND MILITARY POSITIONS ; AND 
WHO, GUIDED BY THE SAME SPIRIT OF UNSUR- 
PASSED PERSEVERANCE, PLANTED THE FLAG 
OP HIS COUNTRY ON PORT HUDSON, 
BORE IT IN TRIUMPH THROUGH 
WESTERN LOUISIANA, AND UP THE RIO GRANDE, 

STiji's 17olume, 

BY PERMISSION, IS INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS 

SINCERE ADMIRER AND GRATEFUL FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



The "Macpherson Letters" were pnblislied in tlie 
JSTew Orleans Eea during the past year. Tlieir unex- 
pected, and, perhaps, undeserved popularity in the 
Southwest, and a very general desire on the part of the 
author's friends to see them in a book, are his reasons 
for publishing them. His observations in jN"ew Or- 
leans led him to believe that ridicule was the most po- 
tent weapon that could be employed against the absurd 
opinions and prejudices of that portion of the people of 
the Southwest who sympathised with the rebellion. 
He had, at least, the gratification of knowing that they 
were very generally read, not only in the army and 
navy, but by the people, many of whom believed, for 
some time, that " Macpherson" was an actual citizen of 
Madisonville, and a genuine correspondent of the Eea. 

The blind prejudices, the j)rofound political igno- 
rance, the strong passions and boundless credulity of 
the rebels in New Orleans, must appear incredible to 
those who have always lived in a free community, 



6 PEEFACE. 

wliere freedom of speech is tolerated, and wher^ uni- 
versal education renders every one more or less familiar 
with passing events and the topics of the times. But 
those who have freely mingled with that class of Loui- 
sianians who still cling to the faith of Jeff. Davis, will 
not be surprised to learn that Macpherson's philosophy ^ 
was so much in accordance with theirs, and that his 
exaggerated style of speech was so faithful a copy of 
secession bombast, that the " great Confederate Philos- 
opher" was, for some weeks, quite a favorite with the 
hot-headed rebels of the Crescent City. 

Many of the incidents which the author attempted 
to ridicule in these " Letters," were too local in their 
character to be understood by a reader not familiar 
with the facts. So far as practicable, -these parts have 
been omitted in this publication, and such explanatory 
notes have been prefixed to each chapter, as seemed ne- 
cessary to give the general reader an understanding of 
its import. 

The author will state that when he commenced the 
publication of these letters, he had no expectation of 
writing but one ; and to that he signed the first name 
that occurred to him, without reflection. He was not 
then aware that an ofiicer named James B. McPherson 
held a commission in the United States Army, — an ig- 
norance due, probably, to the fact that for many 



PEEFACE. 7 

months the author was in service where newspapers 
seldom reached him. But the officer in question, by 
his gallant conduct on many hard-fought fields, has 
made a national reputation for skilful and daring gen- 
eralship, and his name is as familiar as household 
words to all who have read the story of Yicksburg, 
and of the various movements of the noble army of 
General Grant. 

A. C. H. 
New Okleans, La., January, 1864. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Free Trade with tlie Rebels 13 

CHAPTER H. 

Mr. Macplierson liatli Hopes for liis Idiotic Boy. — ^He declareth 
liimself to be a good Union Man, — Correspondence, and tlie 
Way to send it. — Tlie True Plan of Conciliation, etc 16 

CHAPTER HI. 

The Great Secession Demonstration in New Orleans, as described 
by Louis T. Wigfall Macpberson 19 

CHAPTER IV. 

Macpherson takes the Oath of Allegiance.— A Letter from Jeff. 
Davis. — A Good Confederate Lady with Yankee Boarders. — 
A Gross Insult to the Confederacy, etc., etc 25 

CHAPTER V. 

Macpherson, Journeying to Madisonville, sees the Great Confed- 
erate Cross in the Heavens. — He is seized by Arizonian Gue- 
rillas, and taken to the Place of Execution. — His Escape from 
Death etc 34 



CHAPTER VI. 

A FuU Account of the Great Macpherson Festival at the House 

of the Noble Woman, in New Orleans. 45 

1* 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Macplierson, setting up as a Confederate Pliilosoplier, explains 
tlie Distinction of Races to Ms Idiotic Boy. — Advent, History, 
and Adventures of the Unhappy Cuss. — Macplierson captured 
by Duryea's Zouaves. — Interview with the "Southern Source," 
etc., etc 55 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Great Charity Fair 66 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Confederate Arithmetic 81 

CHAPTER X. 
Hymn of Salvation 84 

CHAPTER XI. 

Macplierson dedicates himself to War and Larceny. — He encoun- 
ters the Honest Jew , 85 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Great Confederate Traveller describes his Journey through 
the Louisiana Lowlands Low 91 

CHAPTER XHL 

Macpherson appears as a Clergyman, and expounds the Confed- 
erate Gospel. — He encounters the Weeping Orphan, and unex- 
pectedly finds a Large Family on his hands. — He preaches 
from the Text : " Blow ye !" etc., etc lOG 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Macpherson as a Military Chieftain. — He is appointed a Major 
General of Confederate Volunteers. — He issues a Proclamation, 
raises an Army, and wins two Battles in a single Day, etc., etc. 118 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER XV. 

PAGE 
Macplierson encounters and shoots a Midnight Assassin. — He 
conscripts Negroes, and addresses them in a manner calculated 
to arouse their Zeal in the Confederate Cause. — He appoints 
his Staff, etc., etc 125 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Registered Enemies of the United States leave the Depart- 
ment of the Gulf. — General Macplierson superintends their 
Departure. — He " Gobbles" them as soon as they arrive in his 
Dominions. — He unexpectedly meets the Honest Jew, etc., etc. 133 



CHAPTER XVH. 

An Account of the Death of James B. Macpherson, the Great 
Confederate Philosopher, Warrior, Author, and Southern 
Blower 143 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Resuscitation of Macplierson. — It is Discovered that he was 
not Dead, only Dead Drunk. — His Method of Paying Debts. — 
He makes the Acquaintance of the Reliable Gentleman, etc., 
etc 149 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Macplierson encounters the Cussed Fool of Carondelet street. — 
Betting on Vicksburg and Port Hudson. — Fourth of July Cel- 
ebration at Madisonville, etc., etc 160 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Phantom Confederate ; or, the Ghost of Madisonville. (A 
True Story) 168 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Macpherson is arrested for Assault and Battery. — He expounds 
the Law of Responsibility. — He visits Port Hudson and Vicks- 
burg. — He tests the Homoeopathic Principle, and is Chased by 
the Devil, etc., etc - • • • • l'J'5 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGE 

Macpherson is seized with the Newspaper Mania, and Determines 
to become an Editor. — He dissolves the Army of Madisonville, 
etc., etc 183 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Macpherson, disgusted with the Newspaper Business, resolves 
to acquire Office and Civil Renown. — The Restoration of Civil 
Government in Louisiana. — Macpherson is elected Governor 
of the State, etc., etc 188 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Governor is besieged by Office-seekers. — The ingenious 
Method by which he dispersed the Mob. — The True Southern 
Patriot, and why he would not accept Office. — The Idiotic Boy 
chastised. — The Governor makes a Pilgrimage to Richmond. — 
The Full and Authentic History of the Congressional Career 
of the Cussed Fool and the Solitary Horseman, etc., etc 199 



THE LETTERS 



JAMES B. MACPHERSOI, 



CHAPTER I. . 

Free Trade with the Rebels. 

Note, — Madisonville is a town situated on tlie Tchefimcta river, 
near Lake Pontcliartrain, and was within tlie rebel lines at the time 
these letters were written, as it is, in fact, at the present time. The 
people were known to be destitute of many of the necessaries of life, 
and the secessionists of New Orleans made a strong effort to induce 
the authorities to permit free trade across the lake, on the ground 
that humanity required it, and that the people were non-combatants. 
The Daily Picayune advocated this theory, and a writer, signing 
himself " Observer," published a communication in that paper urging 
its adoption by the authorities. The notion appeared too absurd to 
be treated seriously, and the author attempted to exhibit it in this 
light in the following letter, which appeared in The Era, February 
17th, 1863. 

Madisonville, La., 
Sunday Evening, February 15. 

SiK : — I have a wife and twelve cliildren, all of them 
sons except the wife. ISTine of them are in the Con- 
federate service, and so am I. The other three are not 
in the service, because one of them is only three years 



14 THE MACPHftESON LETTEES. 

old, but lie will probably be old enough to join tbe 
armj before tbe United States are crusbed. Another 
one bas lost a leg in tbe war, so that be can't march ; 
and the other one is idiotic. I am home on a furlough, 
and find my wife and three sons bad enough off. They 
are destitute of many of the necessaries of life, and for 
my part I don't know what they will do. 

I think the United States ought to supply them with 
food. They are non-combatants, and there is no chance 
that any of them will ever fight except the youngest ; 
and stipulation might be made that he should not eat 
any of the food sent over, if that should be deemed ne- 
cessary. 

So long as I and the nine able bodied boys stay in 
the Confederate army, it will be necessary to have the 
rest of the family receive supplies from J^ew Orleans ; 
and humanity and philanthropy demand that trade 
should be allowed. 

I was pleased to read in this morning's Picayune^ a 
communication from Mr. Observer, on this point. He 
proposes to send salt and other indispensable articles, 
and says he would go into the business himself, if he 
had the means, and could get the necessary authority. 
I hope he will go into it at once, as we need the salt 
much, and the indispensable articles would also come 
handy. He can make a good thing of it, as we are 
willing to pay a large price for salt, flour, quinine, 
clothing, cotton-cards, etc., all of which will bring a 
larger price here than Observer wiU have to give for 
them in ]^ew Orleans. I would pay a large price for 
what my family needs, as I could fight a great deal 
better if I knew the folks were comfortable at home. 



FREE TEADE WITH THE EEBELS. 15 

By all means let some one lend Mr. Observer the capi- 
tal if lie hasn't got it, for there is no reason why non- 
combatants shouldn't be fed. 

Yours, sincerely, 

James B. Macpheeson. 

P. S. — While you are about it, tell Observer to bring 
me an English rifle, with a cartridge-box, and a hun- 
dred rounds of ammunition. 

J. B. M. 



IG THE MACEHERSON LETTERS. 



CHAPTEE II. 

Mr. Macpherson hath Hopes for his Idiotic Boy. — He 

DECLARETH HIMSELF TO BE A GOOD UnION Man. COR- 
RESPONDENCE, AND THE Way TO SEND IT. ThE TrUE 

Plan of Conciliation, etc. 

Note. — Confederate prisoners wlio were to leave New Orleans on 
parole, were discovered to liave contraband letters sewed into tlieir 
clothing. 

Madisonyille, JLiA., 
Feljruary 21st, 1863. 

Sir : — I find tliat The Era piiblislied mj letter, in 
which I showed that the United States ought to sup- 
port my family as long as I am in the Confederate ser- 
vice, and that the destitute people on this side of the 
lake should be permitted to trade with E'ew Orleans. 
When I saw that letter in The Era, I experienced all 
the pleasure of a man who, for the first time, sees his 
name in print. I looked at it two or three hours, and 
then handed it over to my Idiotic Boy. 

I could not restrain my tears, when I thought of the 
unhappy fate of that youth, doomed never to write a 
letter for the newspapers, nor to realize the blissful 
feelings which swelled in his father's heart, at gazing 
upon his 6wn name in small-cap letters. 

" Cheer up, my dear," said my wife. " James, to be 
sure, is an idiot, but idiots does sometimes write for 
newspapers." 

Immediately she handed me " Observer's" letter in 
Sunday's Picayune^ and I became calm. Whenever I 
look at that letter I believe fully my wife's remark. 



EIGHTS OF A NON-COMBATANT. 17 

As I told you before, I am home on a furloiigli, and 
so long as I remain away from my regiment, at Port 
Hudson, I consider myself a non-combatant, and I de- 
mand from the United States government all the rights 
of a neutral. I wish, while my furlough continues, to 
take a hand in trade across the lake, and as Observer 
promises to go into it if anybody will furnish funds, I 
now definitely offer him my assistance, and promise to 
invest my last three months' pay as a private, which I 
have just drawn from the pajrmaster in Confederate 
treasury notes and Madisonville butchers' tickets, and 
three dollars of which are worth three cents in coin. 

What I want now, is, to make arrangements for get- 
ting all the newspapers across the lake, and to gain in- 
formation in regard to the Union soldiers in General 
Banks's Department. So long as I am a neutral, I have 
a perfect right to know what is going on, and the in- 
formation thus obtained I could sell to my General for 
a high price, which would do much towards feeding my 
destitute family, and helping on our speculations. You 
will therefore please forward to me immediately a full 
statement of the number of troops in the Department 
of the Gulf, where the camps are located, the quality of 
arms, the number of guns, the amount of ammunition, 
the number, strength, and position of the gunboats, the 
maps and plans of future operations by land and water, 
and any other small matters which would be of interest 
and use to me, and which can do no harm so long as I 
am a non-combatant. If, however, the military author- 
ities should differ from the Picayune and me in these 
matters, please sew all necessary letters into the collars 
and cuffs of the coats of Confederate soldiers, boimd 



18 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

only by 2. parole of honor, and stnlf all tlie newspapers 
yon can find into the legs of their breeches. 

Bnt there can be no possible objection to permitting 
free correspondence with me. I am, in fact, a good 
Union man, and boldly proclaim my Union sentiments 
among my comrades. My doctrine is, that the United 
States ought to lay down their arms at once, and then 
ask for an armistice, preparatory to a recognition of the 
SoutheiTL Confederacy. Such a step wonld place the 
Confederate States under great obligations to the United 
States, and would engender a sentiment of friendship. 
It would, to be sure, result in the complete success of 
the Confederate cause ; but it would heal all feelings 
of wounded pride on our part, and perhaps ultimately 
restore the Union. I, for one, would then go for a re- 
establishment of the Union, on condition that all the 
JSTorthern men who do not agree with me should be hung 
or expelled from the country. If the United States 
would consent to this, and purge itself effectually of all 
men of opposite politics, I think we might be remiited 
and live together in peace. But so long as any one 
favorable to the United States government is tolerated 
in the North, I, for one, am opposed to the Union, and 
will urge the Confederate army to fight, and make all 
I can out of it. Let the United States government 
pursue a conciliatory policy and hang all its friends, 
however, and I believe then a happy peace will dawn 
upon this land, and the advocates of war will skulk 
away in terror and disgrace. 

Yours, truly, 

James B. Macpheeson. 



SECESSION DEMONSTEATION. 19 



CHAPTEE III. 

The Great Secession Demonstration in New Orleans, 
AS Described by Louis T. Wigfall Macpherson. 

Note. — On the 20th February, 1863, a large number of rebel pris- 
oners left New Orleans to be exchanged. They were to have been 
taken on the steamer Empire Parish ; but that vessel met with some 
accident before she got off. The departure of these prisoners was 
made the occasion of a grand demonstration on the part of the seces- 
sion women of the city, who thronged the levee by thousands, to ex- 
press their sympathy for the_ cause of treason. The prisoners all 
went away with new suits of clothes, furnished by rebel women in 
the city, and would have carried other suits had the authorities per- 
mitted it. The assembly became so noisy and insolent, that a regi- 
ment of soldiers finally cleared the levee. 

Madisonville, La., 
February 28th, 1863. 

Sir : — I now forward a copy of the letter of my son 
Louis T. Wigfall, of the Confederate Army ; and here 
I deem it proper to state that I am a descendant of 
revolutionary sires, and consequently that I named my 
sons after the greatest lights of American history. 
They are: George Washington, Louis T. Wigfall, 
Thomas Jefferson, Roger A. Pryor, Ben. Wood, John 
C. Breckinridge, Andrew Jackson, Toussaint I'Ouver- 
ture, and 'Horatio Seymour. Those are the names of 
my nine boys in the army. The idiot I have named 
James Buchanan Floyd, the cripple Braxton Bragg, 
and the infant Mason Slidell. Having premised thus 
much, I will proceed with the letter : 



20 THE macph:^son lettees. 

Louis T. Wig fall MacphersorCs Adventures in New 

Orleans. 

Louis T. Wigfall Macpherson writes : 

" I've had tlie biggest kind of a time sense you hnrd 
from Me last. I was took prisoner by the Yanks. I 
had sworn never to surrender alive, and I never would 
have done it, only M}^ back happened to be turned at 
the minit, and so they got Me and sent Me to New 
Orleans with the rest. They locked me up for a while, 
but then they let Me out on payroll in the streets, and 
I had the fredum of the sitty. 

" Well, as I went saunchering along the streets I met 
a lady whose dress and proud bearing told me at once 
she belonged to the alight, and so it proved. She 
stopped and looked at me inquiringly, and finally bend- 
ing her proud head towards me, she says : ' Pardon 
Me, sir, but isn't you a Confederate soljur V Says I : 
^ Yes, miss, I is.' Says she to Me : ' I thought so by 
your prond and hauty bearing, and by your dilapidated 
gray garments, which is dearer in my eyes than the 
vestments of a monarch, or the costly robes of tbie 
Prince de Joinville.' Then I bent my hauty head to- 
wards her and said : ' I thank you, miss ; you do Me 
proud.' Then says she : ' Come and see us ;' and says 
I : '- Where do you live ;' Then she told me, and I 
went to see 'em that very night. 

" I found that the family belonged to the alight, and 
was all of the wright stripe. The lady had ate dau- 
ters, seven of them grown up, and all of them lovely 
and charming as rose-blossoms, and all as secesh as 
Lovell or Yallandigham. The old lady had a stick 



ADVENTURES. 21 

about two feet long, wliich slie had saved from the 
rebel flagstaff at Fort Jackson ever since our victory 
there over Farrigut. It was beantifnl to see her wave 
this stick over the heads of her obediunt danters and 
hurrah for the Confederacy. 

" Says all of them to Me : ' Make this your home as 
long as you are in E"ew Orleans.' Says I : ' Thank 
you, kind ladies, I will do so ;' and I did. I staid in 
that house until I was exchanged, and it was beautiful 
and romantic to see the devotion of them lovely dauters 
of the South. I was as ragged as Lazarus, and hadn't 
a red, and so the old lady sent for a Confederate taylor, 
and had him make Me a sute of close — a nice gray uni- 
form ; and then they took Me up to the photographic 
gallery and had My likeness took. But this wouldn't 
do, and each of the ate dauters had a sute made, and 
each one of them presented me with a Confederate uni- 
form complete. 

" Purty soon the time cum to be exchanged on the 
Empire Parish, and then I put on my whole nine sutes 
at a time. I felt grand and looked like the Irysh jiunt, 
only not as tall. Says they all : ' We are sorry to lose 
your society, but the Confederacy needs your services, 
and we must let you go.' Then they all cryed. 

" It was now time to go down to the boat, and these 
lovely ladies was determined to show then* devotion to 
our hoely cawse. So the old lady took her stick, and 
she with the ate dauters, all wearing seceshun flags 
around their wastes, formed a holler square around Me, 
and I marched in the senter with them as a escort of 
onur. As we was going to the levee we met a Yank 
sojjur, who shouted out : ' Go it, grayback ! — ^you need 



22 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

an escort of women.' Tlie old lady said : ' I'll take no 
insult from a Yank !' and then she knocked him down 
with the peace of the flag-staff allewded to ; and I ap- 
plawded her and the danters laft. It was a beautiful 
site to behold that woman bend her proud and hauty 
head and raise her delicate white snowy arm in the 
cawse of her country, and to see those lovely dauters, 
so alight, smiling sweetly upon her. 

" There was a glorious time at the Levee. Holler 
squares ke]3t coming in, and all true to the cawse ; and 
in order to show em I was not afrade to fite, I knocked 
a big nigger off the wharf into the river. Just as I 
was going a board, the old lady slapped Me on the 
shoulder ; but I didn't feel it, her hand was so delicate 
and I had so many sutes of gray close on. But says 
she : ' There's one thing I've forgot.' Then she ripped 
open my cuffs and coUers, and sode in a catalogue of 
Farragut's ships and General Banks's troops, saying: 
' That's for Jeff. Davis.' Says I : ' Miss, I'm on my 
payi'oU of onur not to do so.' Says she : ^ A Confeder- 
ate paja-oU is not wuth a red,' or words to that effect ; 
and so after they had jDut a newspaper and a plug of 
tobacker in each pocket, they all kissed Me, and the old 
lady said : ' Brave son of the Confederacy ! — the alight 
of the city has come to see you off and to shour on your 
heads the blessings of patryotic matruns and spotless 
mades, and to fill your pockets with letters and to- 
backer, Axcept these toakuns of our patryotic devo- 
shun, and think of us when you are far above Baton 
Bouge !' Says I : ' Thanks, miss, to you and your ate 
alight dauters for your patryotic wishes, for the tobacker 
you have bestowed on my unworthy head, and for 



NEGEO SOLDIERS. 23 

teaching me the value of a Confederate payroll of 
onur.' 

" Then I went aboard, and the old lady she swung 
her stick and we all give three cheers for Jeff. Davis ; 
and then I fell off of the paddle-box into the river, over- 
cmn with the manly emotions which swelled in my 
bosom. A Yank pulled me out, for I had so many 
close on I couldn't stur. If I ever meet him in battle 
I'll ring his neck for him. 

" I was so heavy with wet close and things that it 
took the whole ship's crew to jduU me out. They set 
me on the paddle-box, and I was so heavy that the 
whole concern broke down, and they had to put us on 
another ship. 

" As soon as we got up to Port Hudson, I sold all my 
close for $800 a sute, bringing me a total of $7,200, 
and now I'm perfectly destitute — haven't got a decent 
sute to put on. Send my order to the United States 
for a new uniform, and invest my money in salt and 
ship it up to Port Hudson on a flag-of-truce-boat im- 
mediately, and oblige 
" Your destitute son, 

" Loins T. "WiGFALL Macpheesoit, 

" Co. 1, 18th La. Yols." 

Mr. Macjphcrson^s Views on Negro Soldiers. 

I now wish to make a few remarks on the subject of 
negro soldiers. I am opposed to negroes in the abstract, 
and am dead set against having them enlisted as soldiers 
in the service of the United States ; and I regard such 
enlistments as inhuman, wicked, barbarous, and damna- 
ble beyond description. The English Dictionary does 



24 THE MACP^EESON LETTEES. 

not contain adjectives strong enongli to paint tlie hor- 
rors of making Union soldiers of negroes; bnt when 
yon come to make tliem Confederate soldiers, I, for 
one, am in favor of it ; and if nine regiments are 
raised, I mean that each of my sons shall be a Colonel. 
I will then get my furlongh cancelled, and take the field 
in person, as a Brigadier-General, in command of the 
Macpherson Brigade. As soon as the war is over I will 
bny a plantation and set them at work on it, and I mean 
to be the largest slaveholder and antocrat in the Con- 
federacy. 

Yours respectfully, 

James B. Macpheeson. 



OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 25 



CHAPTEE ly. 

Macpiierson takes the Oath of Allegiance. — A Lettjmi 
riioM Jeff. Davis. — A Good Confederate Lady with 
Yankee Boarders. — A Gross Insult to the Confeder- 
acy, ETC., etc. 

Note. — Many secessionists in New Orleans took the oatli of alle- 
giance to tlie United States, merely to save their property from con- 
fiscation. It was not uncommon for them to boast that such was 
their only motive, and that they did not regard the oath as binding 
upon their consciences. This was true of some who gained their 
daily bread by boarding Federal officers. It was not an unusual 
spectacle to see ladies cross the street rather than pass under a flag 
of the United States ; this was one way in which they exhibited 
their hatred of the Union, and their sympathy for the rebel cause. 

Madisonville, La., 

March 7th, 18G3. 

Sir : — You should know that my letters in The Eka 
have been regularly forwarded to Jeff. Davis, at Eich- 
mond. With the one in last Sunday's paper, I sent a 
request that my furlough might be extended ; and in 
reply I received, by telegraph, the following : 

Letter from Jeff. Davis. 

" Richmond, Va., March 3. 
" My Deak Macpheeson : — I have received from 
time to time the copies of The Eea containing your 
wise and patriotic letters, which I have read with evei*- 
increasing pleasure. The sufferings of your family and 
the destitution which prevails among my subjects have 
touched my paternal heart; and I now recommend 
that you go at once to JS'ew Orleans and take the oath 



26 THE MACPg:EESON LETTERS. 

of allegiance. Of course joii will understand tliat no 
oath is binding upon the conscience of a Confederate, 
unless taken before a Confederate magistrate. Having 
eaten enough to last you until your next visit, and 
made such observations as will be useful to the cause, 
you will return on the first flag-of-truce-boat, and im- 
mediately comm]inicate to me all information you can 
obtain. Also, bring your satchel full of edibles for 
your family. 

" I have directed my Adjutant-general, S. Cooper, to 
make out a new furlough for you, excusing you from 
all duty with your regiment, so long as you continue to 
write for The Eea. 

" I also forward herewith a commission for your son, 
John C. Breckinridge Macpherson, as Colonel of the 
8th Georgia Negro Confederate Liberty Guards. 
" I am, my dear Mac, 

" Yom's in Confederate bonds, 

"Jeff. Davis." 

I was proud enough, the Lord knows, when I first 
saw my name printed in The Eea ; but what shall I 
say of my feelings when I received the above letter ? 
^'Is it possible," I cried aloud, clasping my hands and 
raising my eyes impressively, in a manner which would 
do credit to Yining Bowers; "is it possible that the 
President of the new nation, the anchor of Southern 
independence, the flag-stafi" of our proud stars and bars, 
the chiefest demigod of Confederate mythology, has 
condescended to write to me in terms of fraternal en- 
dearment ?" I clasped my Idiotic Boy to my bosom, 
waved my letter aloft to heaven, seized my satchel, 



STRUGGLE WITH CONSCIENCE. 27 

and, with emotions onlj equalled by those of Floyd 
when he first esj^ied the United States treasury build- 
ing, started hurriedly for 'New Orleans. 

MacphersoTi^s manly Struggle with Ms Conscience. 

The first encounter I had was with my own con- 
science. Said conscience to me : " Macpherson, re- 
member that thou art the descendant of revolutionary 
sires, the proud representative of an honorable house 
and name, the great light and mirror of Madisonville 
chivalry, and, more than all, the confidential agent of 
Jefi'. Davis, the greatest man that ever trod in Confed- 
erate shoes, worth $300 a pair. Then how canst thou, 
O Macpherson, lover of honor and hater of Yankees, 
raise thy hand to heaven and swear allegiance to a 
flag which, to thine illuminated mind, is the symbol of 
ungodly power and basest tyranny ? and how canst 
thou consent to eat the bread of Yankees, gotten under 
the false pretense that thou art faithful to their flag ? 
O Macphereon ! pause and go home !" 

But I told my conscience to dry up. Did not Daniel 
eat the bread of the pagan king, and was not Daniel 
bold as a lion ? " I will take the oath," said I, " but 
there is not Spaulding's glue enough among hving 
men to stick me to it !" 

Macpherson taJces the Oath of Allegiam.ce, 

Well, I went and took the oath. It was a matter of 
compulsion, because it was the only way I could get 
inside the lines without becoming a prisoner ; and when 
a man takes an oath under compulsion, he is allowed to 



2S THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

break it the first chance. But when I went up to take 
the oath of allegiance, I asked the Yankee officer if he 
would have the goodness to let me look at the Bible 
before I swore. He kindly assented, and looking at 
the imprint I found it had been published in Boston, 
and was a regular abolition concern; and then con- 
science gave way, and said I could swear to any thing 
I chose on a Bible printed north of Mason and Dixon's 
line. I swore to a lot of stuff — more than I like to 
think of now ; but one of the points was that I would 
never bear arms ao-ainst the United States. But to 
this I mentally added the words, " so long as my fur- 
lough lasts," and my conscience went to sleep as sound- 
ly as though it had been soothed by twenty whisky- 
skins at Marble Hall. 

MacjyJieTson finds a good Confederate Lady. 
As I expected to remain in town most of the week, 
I resolved to find a boarding-house with some good 
Confederate who had taken the oath of allegiance. I 
soon discovered such a place — a house kept by a Con- 
federate lady, whose husband and three sons are in our 
army, boldly fighting for Southern independence, and 
who has taken the oath of allegiance to save the prop- 
erty from confiscation. I found this good lady to be 
true blue. " Macj^herson," said she, when I applied 
for board, "have you taken the oath of allegiance to 
the Abolitionists ?" I blushed all over, from tlie crown 
of my Confederate head to the soles of my Confederate 
shoes, as I replied, " Yes." " Well, then," said this 
brave lady, "if you have done that git out of this 
house ! Them as leaves the army when they ought to 



THE CONFEDERATE LADY. 29 

be bearing the burden and beat of tbe Confederate day, 
mnsn't come sneaking around tbis bouse for sbelter. 
If I was a man, do you tbink I would be bere ? E"o 
sir-ee. I would bave a Jeif. Davis musket on my sboul- 
der, and would be sending deatb and blood abroad 
among tbe Yankees as a besom of destruction. "Wbere 
is my sons and busband ? Isn't tbey doing tbeir duty 
to tbe Confederacy on tbe bloody field, and one of tbem 
in tbe commissary department ! Ob ! I bate cowards 
and traitors, and a man as leaves tbe Confederacy and 
comes over to live on Yankee bread is all tbree com- 
bined in one mean baleful critter, wbo can't find no 
encouragement nor sbelter under tbis roof ! Git out of 
bere, James B. Macpberson ! — or I'll bave my nigger 
kick you into tbe gutter !" 

As sbe gave utterance to tbese noble and patriotic 
sentiments, ber tall form was erect, ber eyes flasbed 
witb Confederate fire like tbe bolts of Ofympian Jove ; 
ber fists were clencbed in tbe very ecstasy of anger, 
and cowering before ber for mercy, I could but feel 
tbat I was in tbe presence of a goddess. 

" Minerva of Louisiana !" I exclaimed, kneeling be- 
fore ber — " Pallas Atbene of tbe Confederacy ! let me 
explain to you tbe manner and meaning of my visit. 
Allow me to — " 

Just at tbis stage of my address, tbe good lady's nig- 
ger, in obedience to a wave of ber band, came steal tbi- 
ly bebind me, opened tbe door, and seizing me by tbe 
collar, kicked me out of tbe bouse, landing me square 
in tbe gutter. 

I sat tbere a considerable time, wben suddenly a 
Yankee officer approacbed, and be asked me into bis 



30 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

room. To mj astonisliment, he walked into the very 
house from which I had just heen so summarily ejected. 
I sat down and wrote an explanation of my position, 
and sent it to the good lady. In -^ye minutes she sent 
for me, said she was delighted to see me, proud to have 
me under her roof, and that I needn't pay a picayune 
for board as long as I staid there. She then had the 
nigger whij)ped for kicking me out, and from that mo- 
ment we were fast friends. 

I found that her house was fiill of Yankee officers, 
except two beautiful young ladies who boarded there, 
and were true as steel to the Confederacy. 

" How comes it, madam," I inquired, " that a woman 
of your proud and patriotic spirit ever consented to 
take the oath of allegiance, or to have your establish- 
ment supported by Yankee officers ?" 

" Because," replied the good lady, " necessity is the 
mother of invention, and being a mother myself I can 
appreciate it. As to taking the oath of allegiance, that 
don't amount to nothing. The oath never went 
through my teeth ; it was necessary to save my proper- 
ty, and I say it boldly, I have no more respect for that 
oath than I have for the President of Hayti. As to 
the Yankee boarders, the times has been when there 
wasn't Confederate treasury notes enough in Jacob 
Barker's safe to hire me to feed a Yankee officer ; but 
times has changed, and finding that I could live on 
Yankees and hate 'em at the same time, I yielded to 
the mother of invention." 

If Mrs. Macpherson could have looked into my heart, 
as the good lady gave utterance to the above honorable 
and patriotic sentiments, I fear she might have been 



INSULTED BY THE FLAG. 31 

jealous of the lively admiration with which the good 
lady inspired me. But whatever emotions were rising 
in my heart were suddenly overwhelmed by a great 
event. 

The two yonng ladies referred to previously., came 
into the room, trembling with excitement and pale with 
ghastly anger. 

" Has it' come to this !" cried the beautiful maiden. 
" Are we to be insulted at our very doors !" 

My chivalric Madisonville blood was aroused by the 
sight of suffering beauty. " Haste me to know it !" I 
cried, springing to my feet, " that I, with wings as swift 
as meditation or the thoughts of love, may have the 
vile ruffian whipped. Where is the big nigger that 
kicked me out of doors ? Madam, bring him hither, 
that we may avenge the injuries of your house !" 

" Such insolence 1" cried the beautiful maiden, " and 
at our very door ! I never !" and she stamped her deli- 
cate foot upon the carpet, as though she would crush 
the United States beneath it. 

" What's the matter ?" demanded the good lady, in 
tones of angelic thunder. 

But the beautiful maiden could not answer. She be- 
came speechless with patriotic rage, and fell to the 
earth, pointing to the door and gasping with her fiiint- 
ing breath — 

" The flag !— the flag !" 

Hastening to the door, we beheld a loathsome spec- 
tacle. The man living near our door, a citizen of ]^^ew 
Orleans, had displayed a United States flag from his 
dwelling. A more gross insult to the Confederacy and to 
the good people who have taken the oath of allegiance to 



oiJ THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

save tlieir property, could not be imagiiiecl. As the 
good lad}^ gazed upon that detestable emblem of tyranny 
and bloody despotism, to wbich slie bad taken the oath 
of allegiance, she ground lier teeth together, so that 
you could hear them around the corner. Then we shut 
the door, and all fainted. 

As soon as we recovered, we held a family consulta- 
tion, and it was discussed whether to leave for the Con- 
federacy or to commit suicide. The beautiful maiden 
argued in favor of the latter course, as a sentimental 
way of serving the Confederacy. " How romantic 1" 
she exclaimed ; " what a splendid subject for a Confed- 
erate Sylvanus Cobb ! — what a touching picture for the 
artist of Hmyer'S Weekly or Frank Leslie's Illus- 
trated I — Oh ! let us commit suicide, and be first in the 
book of Confederate martyrs, as a lovely matron and 
maid, who died rather than live under the flag to which 
they had taken the oath of allegiance, to save their 
property ! I wish," she added with a sigh, which moved 
me to tears, "that the whole Southern Confederacy 
would commit suicide !" 

This noble and patriotic sentiment would have pre- 
vailed, only we w^ished to preserve the property and 
make some more money out of the Yankees ; and so 
we decided that every time we went out of the house, 
we would go bolt across the street and walk on the 
other side until we had passed the hateful flag, and then 
recross the street, thus omitting to walk under it. And 
the ladies went and took down the name and number 
of the man who had committed this outrage against the 
Confederacy, and I immediately sent the memorandum 
on to Jeff. Davis, askiug his protection. 



TELEGRAM TO JEFF. DAVIS. 33 

Just before leaving ISTew Orleans, I got very drunk. 
In tliat state I went to the telegraph office and got 
Bulklej to send the following dispatch to Jeif. Davis : 

" Dear Javis : — Honor report drunkenness alarming 
extent. Banks's army thoroughly demented — 18 divi- 
sions actual mutiny manifestations increasing ladies 
true great want of Madisonville bread and whisky. 
Full particulars in full letters by next dispatch. Block- 
ade broken and Federal fleet sunk. Mac. 

I fear the head of the new nation can't comprehend 
the above, but it is less obscure than the Southern Con- 
federacy, and he professes to understand that. 
Yours untiringly, 

James B. Macpherson^. 

P. S. — My Idiotic Boy is preparing an attack on the 
Know ]N"othings and Pilgrim Fathers, which will be 
sent to the TT%ie Delta for publication. 

J. B. M„ 



34 THE MACP^EESOIS' LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

Macpherson, Journeying to Madisonville, sees the Great 
Confederate Cross in the Heavens. — He is seized by 
Arizonian Guerillas, and taken to the Place of Ex- 
ecution. — His Escape from Death, etc. 

Note. — The New Orleans Picayune, of Marcli 7tli, contained tlie 
following extraordinary announcement of a great phenomenon in 
the heavens : 

A Cross in the Heavens. — A well-defined cross was seen in the 
sky over Kingston, N. C, some two weeks since. A correspondent, 
writing from that point to the Wilmington (N. C.) Journal, gives the 
following description of the phenomenon : 

" The moon rose cloudless. At a little before seven o'clock, two 
bright spv-^ts, some twelve degrees (Qr. in extent f) were visible, one 
North and the other South, and immediately thereafter a cross was 
seen in the heavens, the moon joining the four arms of the cross. 
About half-past eight o'clock the Northern light went out, but the 
cross and the spot to the South remained until past ten, when I re- 
tired. Can any one tell when the cross appeared before since the 
days of Constantine, when the letters of I. H. S. accompanied the 
sign ?" 

Sibley, it is known, commanded a body of Arizonian cavalry ; and 
a detachment of these wild and irregular troops one day " gobbled " 
a correspondent of The Era. He was made to follow them nineteen 
hours, when he was released in consideration of his gold watch and 
fifty dollars. The Memphis Appeal was in high favor with the seces- 
sionists of New Orleans, and its reports of rebel successes were about 
as truthful as the account contained in Macpherson's letter. The 
guerillas were much given to destroying the telegraph within our 
lines. 

IVIadisonville, La., 

February 14th, 1863. 

SiE : — I approach mj subject with awe and supersti- 
tion. 

I am the ilhiminated Confederate who saw the Great 
Cross in the Heavens, described by the Wihnmgton 



NAEKOW ESCAPE FKOM DEATn. 35 

Joitrnal, and reverently believed by tlie New Orleans 
Picayune. 

It will be remembered tbat, on the occasion of my 
recent visit to E'ew Orleans, where I took tlie oath of 
allegiance to tlie United States, in order to get some- 
tliing to eat, I left tbat city in a state of beastly intox- 
ication. In one pocket of my breeches I had a bottle 
of whisky, and in the other a copy of the Picayune^ 
of the 7th inst. 

As I crossed the line and set foot npon the sacred 
soil of my beloved Confederacy, I cried alond : " Hail, 
sweet Confederacy ! — ^land of m}^ ancestors ! — land for 
which George Washington was shot at by an Indian 
seventeen times, in a single battle ! — for wdiich Jackson 
fought at ]N'ew Orleans — for which Bnrgoyne sur- 
rendered at Saratoga Springs, as thousands have done 
since ! — welcome thy faithful Macpherson once more to 
thy Confederate bosom ! What graphic recollections 
of hunger and thirst crowd upon my patriotic mind, as 
I tread again thy consecrated soil with a new pair of 
shoes! For thy sake, I see Ethan Allen demanding 
the surrender of Ticonderoga, Columbus prowling 
around in search of the New World, and the Pilgrim 
Fathers building huts in the wilds of New England ! " 

Narrow Escape from. Death. 

Just at this stage of my apostrophe, I was startled 
by a loud crash, and a flashing line of iire from the 
thicket in my rear, followed by a voice which cried : 
"Die, base Yankee dog!" The Confederate picket 
had been deceived by my allusion to the Pilgrim 



36 THE MACPHER30N LETTERS. 

Fathers and ISlew England, and, suj)posing I was a 
Yankee, liad fired npon nie a whole volley of Confed- 
erate musketry. Overcome by a strong emotion of 
fear, I fell prostrate npon the soil, and was left for dead. 
But gathering myself np, I soon discovered that I w^as 
as alive as ever, and that the only result of the volley 
had been to deprive me of a considerable portion of my 
pantaloons. - 

Grateful for my deliverance from premature and un- 
natural homicide, I fell into a train of serious reflection ; 
and conscience, with a heavy hand, chastised me for 
approaching my native land in a state of beastly in- 
toxication. I therefore fell upon my knees, and took 
the pledge of perpetual temperance. I vowed in the 
most solemn manner that never again, while life should 
last or the Confederacy endure, would I, under any cir- 
cumstances, taste, touch, or handle one drop of spirituous 
or malt liquors, wine, Louisiana rum, or cider. I then 
danced a double-shuffle, and chanted the Bonnie Blue 
Flag,-w\\h. a snatch oi Stonewall Jackson's Grand March. 

Overcome by patriotic emotions, I determined to 
modify my temperance pledge so far as to take one big 
swig of whisky. And as I had now come within sight 
of Madisonville, I sat down by the fence, and taking 
the bottle from my pocket, cried aloud : " O Eacchus ! 
son of Jupiter and Semelo, thou the victim of Juno's 
unrelenting hatred, who didst cause the women of 
Thebes to run wildly through the woods like Confed- 
erate Gorillas, to thee I dedicate my last parting drink 1" 
I then took the biggest swig of whisky I ever took in 
my life, and the effect was so pleasing, that I kept 
drinking until the bottle was empty. 



37 



The Vision. 



In this frame of mind, and wliile still seated by the 
liighway, under the fence, I imagined myself at home 
in my own room. I trnst I shall be excused for allud- 
ing to the subject, but the truth of history requires me 
to state, that under this strange impression I undressed 
myself and went to bed, hanging the remnants of my 
pantaloons on a fence post, believing it to be a chair. 
Little did I imagine that my bed was Confederate soil, 
and my shelter the brave o'erhanging firmament, the 
majestical roof fretted with golden fire. Yet, so it was, 
and there, upon the all-nourishing bosom of the Con- 
federacy, there on the liighway, in the sight of the 
spires of Madison ville, I lay down under the fence and 
slept the sleep of intoxicated innocence, dreaming of 
Jefi". Davis, the Confederate States of America, Con- 
stantino, Temperance, Bacchus, and Macpherson. 

^ow it was that a wonderful vision broke upon my 
bewildered gaze, which I fear the English language is 
too feeble to describe. ISTevertheless, I will try. 

JVox erat. The moon arose cloudless. At a little 
before seven o'clock two bright spots, about twelve 
degrees, w^ere visible, one north and the other south, 
and immediately a cross was seen in the heavens, the 
moon joining the four arms of the cross. About 
half-past eight o'clock the northern light went out, 
but the cross and the spot to the south remained 
until past ten, when I became too drunk to look at 
it longer, and retired again to the soil of the Confed- 
eracy. 



38 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

The vision, according to tlie best of my recollection, 
which, I admit, is somewhat obscure, presented the fol- 
lomng appearance : 



'EN TOU- (ffpl) TO NIKA * 



c 



As I have already stated, the northern light went 
ont at half-past eight o'clock, and by casting his eyes 
at the above diagram of the vision, the reader will per- 
ceive that the northern light was Jeff. Davis. 

Having gone to sleep at half-past ten, I turned un- 
easily on the soil and partially awoke, exclaiming: 
"Heaven sends miraculous signs whereby it maketh 
known its approval of the Confederacy. I will imbrue 
my hands in Yankee blood, and do such sanguinary 
deeds as will make the name of Macpherson synony- 
mous with human gore. My new shoes shall become 
slippery with homicidal claret." 

■"■ " Witli tliis you will conquer." The words seen by Constantine 
on the cross in the sky. 



THE AEIZONIAN" GOEILLA. 39 

Advent of the Arizonian Gorilla, 

Just at this stage of my patriotic address, I was in- 
terrupted by a voice like that of Mars, when he roared 
amid the ranks of the contending Greeks and Trojans, 
far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. It said : 

" Death to the ' American fanatic and the blind and 
vindictive Unionist !' " 

" That remark," I replied, arousing myself, " is a 
quotation from the True Delta's editorial of the 12th 
inst. Allow me to inquire to whom you refer in that 
noble and patriotic expression f 

" To you, vile abolition renegade ! — you, ' American 
fanatic and blind and vindictive Unionist !' — you, impu- 
dent hireling of Abraham Lincoln, a bloodier despot 
than Nero — a man whose shameless and sanguinary 
deeds, compared with those of Caligula or Helioga 
balus, stand black as a Congo African beside a spotless 
maiden !" 

" Allow me to inquire," I responded, " to whom I am 
indebted for the expression of these noble and patriotic 
sentiments, at this lonely hour, while the celestial ^dsion 
whispers peace to my Confederate bosom ?" 

" I am the Arizonian," he shouted, while the woods 
trembled with the roar of his beautiful voice ; " I am 
the Chief Gorilla, whose will is Confederate law. I 
am the bloody avenger of my country's wrongs — the 
gobbler-up of Yankee emissaries and Eea correspond- 
ents, whose purpose to tear out thy vile heart is as 
relentless as destiny. I am Don Antonio Maria de 
Santiago Sibley !" And then he smote his breast and 
howled. 



40 THE ]SIAC»HERSON LETTERS. 

" Pardon me," I replied, '' for interrupting yon ; bnt 
allow me to inquire if yon have the latest news through 
Southern sources ?" 

He then drew from his pochet the latest Memjphis 
Appeal, and read as follows : 

" We have to record a great Confederate victory over 
the Hessians, at Madisonville, but the lateness of the 
hour and the scarcity of rum will not permit us to give 
full details. Suffice it to say that Gen. Bragg passed 
through Madisonville on the 12th inst. with a force of 
four hundred thousand volunteers, and after marching 
forty-five miles encountered the Yankees with greatly 
superior numbers. The fight lasted eighteen hours, and 
the Yankees were totally routed. 

" On the first discharge of our musketry, fifteen thou- 
sand Ohio troops fell dead. At the close of the en- 
gagement we buried two hundred and eighty-seven 
thousand of the enemy's slam. Not a man was hurt on 
our side, notwithstanding we were exposed to a terrible 
and destructive fire from the enemy's batteries for a day 
and a half. 

" Nine hundred batteries,* two hundred thousand 
prisoners, a million stand of arms, nineteen major-gen- 
erals, and thirty thousand commissioned officers are 
among the spoils of our victory. The commissioned 
officers will be turned over to Gov. Moore for execution, 
and the privates will be offered double pay and com- 
missions to join the Confederate service. 

" Gen. Bragg will reach New Orleans on the 13th 
inst., at daylight. 

" Stonewall Jackson is at Madisonville with eighty- 
four thousand prisoners. 



CONFEDERATE WAR BULLETETS. 41 

Later. 

" ]^ot one of the enemy survived. Those who were 
not killed were mortally wounded. 

" England has recognized the Sonthern Confederacy, 
and a French fleet has blockaded ]^ew York and Phil- 
adelphia. Lincoln is a j)risoner. 

Still Later. 

" We regret to learn that Gen. Bragg's victory was 
not so decisive as at first supposed. He has f^illen hack 
upon Madison ville, and thinks he will be able to hold 
his position. 

Latest. 

" The enemy is in full possession of the field, and has 
advanced two miles. It is believed that Gen. Bragg's 
loss is but little more than that of the enemy. Full 
particulars in our next edition." 

As the Gorilla read the above reliable intelligence, I 
had an opportunity to survey the extraordinary person 
before me. His brow was dark almost to blackness ; 
his shoulders were as broad as those of Hercules ; his 
breast was covered with a shaggy Confederate blanket, 
and his breeches were made of leather. His beard and 
hair nearly swept the ground, while his head was sur- 
mounted by a hat with a broad and dilapidated brim. 
He carried a lasso in his hand, and hurling it with 
Arizonian agility, he caught me round tlie neck and 
drew me to his horse's feet with the strength of Dr. 
Wind ship. He then ordered me to prepare to march 
immediately to the place of execution. 



42 THE MACPHERSON LETTEES. 

The Vision Explained, 

As I took my nnmentionables from the fence, I found, 
much to mj astonishment, that the two arms of the 
cross disappeared, and I discovered that the fence stake 
on which they had been hanging, formed the upright 
part of the great celestial vision, and that the moon, 
shining through the large hole in the above-mentioned 
garment, had given it the appearance of joining the 
four arms of tlie cross, while the Greek inscription and 
the cabalistic letters w^ere easily accounted for by the 
vividness of my imagination, and the presence of the 
Picayune in one of my pockets. 

" Idiot !" shouted the Gorilla, " mount a steed and 
make haste, for to-morrow thou shalt die." I obeyed, 
and we started off, the squadron all singing a song of 
which I remember only the following : 

" I am tlie bold Gorilla ; 
I wears a ragged sliirt ; 
My face is like Attila, 
All covered o'er with dirt. 

* Upon tlie Mississippi, 
I walk along so sly, 
A-watching for to wliip a 
Gunboat a-sailing by. 

" We've stolen many chickens, 
We've emptied many a cup ; 
We've given the Yankees lickings ; 
We are the Gobblers-up !" 

This beautiful and patriotic song was interrupted by 
the sight of a telegraph pole, which immediately in- 
S]3ired the Gorilla and ]iis followers with imcontrollable 



MAOPHEESON EANSOMS HIMSELF. 43 

rage. " Cut the connection !" was the sliout, and dash- 
ing boldly forward in line, they demolished the tele- 
graph pole, and cut the wire in thirty-live pieces with 
their sabres ; after which we resumed our march, over 
rough and dangerous roads, impenetrable swamps, and 
impassable bayous, occasionally stopping to turn a 
family out of the house, or to rob a hen-roost. 

In nineteen hours we arrived at the place of execu- 
tion — a beautiful and romantic spot, surrounded by 
mud and overhung with cypress-trees. "Now," said 
the Arizonian, " prepare for instant death !" 

" Is there nothing," I asked, " that will- change thy 
relentless purpose ?" 

" Nary," he replied. " I am a patriot, and no base 
considerations move me. I despise the Yankees for 
their siDeculations — their mean tricks of traffic ; I hate 
them, because they may be approached with bribes, 
and will sell out for gold or greenbacks. But, as for 
me," he continued, haughtily smiting his bosom, ''I 
am swayed only by chivalric devotion to my country. 
I was educated at West Point, at the expense of the 
United States, and think I got the best of the Yankees 
when I turned against them, notwithstanding their 
shrewdness. So did Beauregard. But to what didst 
thou allude, Macpherson, when thou didst ask if any 
thing might not change my purpose ?" 

" I alluded," was my answer, " to the condition of 
the exchequer. I know that such patriots must live, 
and that Confederate hen-roosts are much exhausted, 
and on condition that you spare my valuable life, I 
will contribute to your financial resources." 

" Hast a gold watch '^" asked the unselfish patriot. 



44 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

"I have." 

" Hast greenbacks ?" 

"Iliave." 

" Greenbacks," qnoth tbe Gorilla, " are not as good 
as ISTew Orleans sliinplasters and car-tickets. I prefer 
ragged three-dollar bills cnt in two in the middle, for 
they remind me of charity concerts, the proceeds of 
which are used to clothe Confederate prisoners." 

" Thy wisli shall be gratified, most noble of patriots !" 
I answered ; " I will give thee my gold watch, and $50 
in cut bills, in exchange for my valuable life." 

" I consider I have got the best of the bargain," said 
tlie Gorilla, as he smilingly appropriated the money 
and watch. " Macpherson, thou hast paid more than 
thy life is worth." 

I then returned to Madisonville, thinking of the 
noble patriotism of those men, actuated only by the 
love of the new nation, and longing in my heart to 
kill a Yankee or destroy a telegraph pole. 
Yours, perseveringly, 

James B. Macpheeson^. 



THE MACPHEKSON FESTIVAL. 45 



CHAPTER YI. 

A Full Account of the Great Macpherson Festival at 
THE House of the Noble Woman, in New Orleans. 

Note. — Previous to the departure of tlie Britisli war-vessel Rinal- 
do from tlie port of New Orleans, in tlie spring of 1863, a party was 
given to the officers of tliat ship at the house of a secessionist, in 
great secrecy. The officers had, on every occasion, exhibited their 
sympathy for the rebel cause, and the party was composed only of 
faithful secessionists. The toasts, songs, and all proceedings were 
of the worst rebel description. A flag of the United States was 
thrown under the table, where all present trampled upon it, and the 

rebel colors were displayed and honored. The tickets of the New 

Orleans City Railroad Company are used for small change, their 

value being a picayune — five cents. At the time this letter was 

written, the secessionists confidently expected " StonewaU" Jackson 
to capture the city. Indeed, the race of those who expect to see the 
rebel power re-established in New Orleans, is not yet extinct ; but as 
the armies of the " Confederacy" are driven back and defeated by 
our forces, the rumors of large rebel armies, just ready to dash in 
upon the city, become more vague and less frequent. 

Madisonville, La., 

March 21st, 1863. 

Sir : — I arrived in I^ew Orleans on Saturday, ac- 
companied by my Idiotic Boy, and had scarcely regis- 
tered my name at the St. Charles, when I was imme- 
diately surrounded by a great crowd of admiring 
friends, who thanked me for my able defense of the 
Confederacy, and for my brilliant assaults upon the 
United States. I replied, that the Confederacy alone 
was worthy of our devotions, and that I received their 
kind remarks, not as a compliment to me, but to the 
Confederacy I represented ; and they admitted that 
such was the fact. I had long believed that I was a 



46 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

descendant of German ancestors, and in order to settle 
the question definitely, I measured heads with a Dutch- 
man, and as our heads were exactly of the same size, I 
considered my Gothic descent fully established. 

Bnt the principal object of my visit to the city was 
to accept the invitation of a ]!^oble Woman — a widow, 
whose husband has lost his life in the cause of the Con- 
federacy. This lady, charmed both by my patriotism 
and my literary abilities, had begged that I would visit 
her, in company with my Idiotic JBoy, and promised to 
give me a grand dinner and festival if I should accept ; 
and I will now give you a full account of 

The Great Macjpherson Festival. 

I found, on entering the house, that the most elabo- 
rate preparations had been made for my reception, and 
neither time, car-tickets, nor labor had been spared to 
make the occasion worthy of the great purpose. 

A mammoth hoop-skirt had been manufactured ex- 
pressly for the banquet, so large that it filled the whole 
room. This was spread over the table and surmounted 
by a Confederate flag a hundred and sixty feet long, 
the Avhole forming a beautiful and spacious canopy. 
The Noble Woman and her daughters had a Confed- 
erate flag in each breadth of skirt, while a miniature 
flag-staff had been fixed into the back of their heads, 
from which gracefully streamed the emblem of the new 
nation, and saucy rebel rosettes covered their craniums, 
beautifully mingling and contrasting the Confederate 
colors with the darkness of their shining raven locks. 

The concave of the spacious canopy was decorated 



47 

with appropriate mottoes and inscriptions, painted in 
beautiful red ink, which would make a column of the 
Eea ; but I shall give only a few of the most striking, 
to-wit : 

" Oil, welcome, great Macpherson I 
Our hearts no more are liglit ; 
We breathe a bitter curse on 
Our Yankee foes to-night." 

" The Confedekact : It must and shall be pre- 
served." — Andrew Jackson Davis. 

" Die, Base Yankee Dog !" — James B. Macjpher- 
son. 

"I Aisi Opposed to ]N^egroes m the Abstract." — 
lUd. 

As I entered the house, followed by my Idiotic Boy, 
the Noble Woman advanced, and bowing in a stately 
and inviting manner, said : " Welcome, great Confeder- 
ate ! — Literary Light of Madisonville and New Orleans ! 
— you who have defended us when our rights were in 
peril, and stood up to the scratch when Lovell sold the 
city to Farragut ! — we wish to pay a tribute to your 
great abilities, which is only equalled by your devotion 
to the Confederacy." To whicb I replied, that I did 
not regard this as a compliment to me personally, but 
to the Confederacy I represented. A nigger fiddler, 
who had been hired for the performance, now struck 
up Beaurega/rd'^8 March, and we all danced a jig around 
the table. 

A retired and secluded residence had been selected, 
and the door was locked, double-bolted, and chained, 
while the windows were barricaded with empty barrels 
and cotton bales, to hide the light and prevent the 



48 THE MACPHERSON LETTEKS. 

noise being heard outside. "These precautions are 
necessary," said the Noble "Woman, " because the peo- 
ple of 'New Orleans live in a condition of abject bond- 
age. "We are not permitted to arm ourselves against 
the United States, nor to keep heavy ordnance in our 
houses preparatory to a Confederate insurrection, nor 
can we have Confederate processions unless we attend 
funerals, nor boldly hurrah for Jeff. Davis." 

" Unhappy j^eople !" I exclaimed, my heart wrung 
w^ith the deepest pity ; " you remind me of Prometheus, 
the son of lapetus, and the instructor of mortals, who 
is said to have surpassed all men in sagacity. For 
having brought fire from heaven to earth in a hollow 
cane, he was chained to a rock with an eagle to prey 
upon his liver. Even so, enslaved ones, are you bound 
to an unhappy destiny, with bands of iron and hooks 
of steel, and the American eagle is gnawing out your 
vitals. But let not your hearts be filled with despair, 
for in thirty thousand years Hercules, the son of Jupiter, 
hastened to his relief, snapped asunder his bonds, and 
he, Prometheus still, arose clothed with all the dignity 
of Southern independence. And as promptly as Her- 
cules hastened to the relief of Prometheus, shall Stone- 
wall Jackson come to sna]3 the Yankee bonds which 
chain this enslaved people to an unhappy destiny, and 
you shall arise and shine in the light of the Confed- 
eracy ! He may be expected Anno Domini 31,863, if 
nothing happens, meantime, to prevent. "Were it not 
for the scarcity of provisions existing at Madisonville, 
I would invite the enslaved populace to visit that classi- 
cal town, and extend to all the freedom of the city in 
a box. But at present that is impracticable." 



ADDRESS. 49 

A great many gnests had been invited, male and 
female, and all of tliem first-class Confederates, and 
neutral citizens and foreign subjects. 'No small-fry were 
present, I assure you. 

I was introduced to each one, and they all compli- 
mented me until I blushed ; but I told them I did not 
consider it a compliment to me personally, but to the 
Confederacy which I represented. 

At last the time came for dinner, and we formed a 
procession in the parlor and marched in under the 
magnificent canopy. As I entered the room, the nigger 
struck up, "Hail to the Chief!" when the whole assem- 
bly gave three cheers for Macpherson and Jefif. Davis. 
I replied : " I thank you for these manifestations of your 
kindness, but I do not consider it a compliment to me 
personally, but to the Confederacy which I represent." 
Whereupon we all sat down. 

Two niggers then entered the room with a United 
States flag in a miniature cofiin. It was taken out and 
spread under the table, and we all tramped on it. Then 
the nigger played the Mansfield Lovell Quichstej) up 
the Jackson Railroad^ when the JSToble Woman said : 
" Ladies and gentlemen — we have assembled this night 
to honor the great light of Confederate literature, James 
B. Macpherson. [Deafening sensation.] I have erected 
this hoopskirt canopy as an appropriate emblem of the 
courage, valor, and daring deeds of the Confederates 
who still reside in JSTew Orleans. For, to the disgrace 
of the United States be it said, such is the uninterrupted 
and infamous tyranny under which we groan, that the 
brave sons of the Confederacy who now inhabit this 
unhappy city, and even French subjects and British 



50 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

sailors, are compelled to seek protection and safety 
amid the skirts of our beautiful women ; and here alone 
it is, in secluded places, witli double-bolted doors and 
barricaded windows, with hushed voices and throbbing 
hearts, stimulated by champagne and nigger-fiddling, 
and overshadowed and concealed by a mammoth skirt, 
that we are permitted to trample upon the flag of the 
United States, that detestable emblem of despotism, 
whose stri]3es are painted with innocent Confederate 
blood, and whose stars are more malignant than Sirius !" 

As the J^oble Woman uttered the closing sentence of 
her eloquent invective, an electric shock of patriotic 
rage ran around the table, similar to that which one 
would experience holding on to a galvanic battery or 
grabbing the electric eel, and rising to our feet we swore 
eternal and undying devotion to the Confederacy. The 
l!^oble "Woman then said that as I had not had any thing 
to eat for several days, I had better proceed uninter- 
ruptedly with my dinner, and speak afterward. To 
which I replied that I did not regard it as a compli- 
ment to me personally, but to the Confederacy which I 
represented. Having eaten, the cloth was removed, and 
then it was that the fun commenced. " The first regular 
toast was given by the IToble Woman. It was : 

" Macpheeson." 

The whole assembly arose, and I was drunk standing, 
when the audience called out : " Speech ! " To which 
I replied : " I thauk you, enslaved citizens of ITew Or- 
leans, lovely women with shining locks, and eyes radiant 
with beauty, countenances rivalling those which come 
to us in our dreams of fairy-land — brave and stalwart 
men, devoted to the Confederacy, but prudently wait- 



THE REGULAR TOASTS. 51 

ing for tlie coming of Stonewall Jackson before yon 
risk yonr lives in the glorions canse — Frencli subjects 
and English mariners, justly abusive towards the United 
States, and enjoying its protection — I thank you all for 
this spontaneous and undeserved manifestation of your 
good-will, but I do not regard it as a compliment to 
me personally, but to the Confederacy I represent." 

The second regular toast was then announced : 

^' Death to the Yankees." 

Drunk standing, and music by the nigger. 

Third regular toast : " Confusion to Faeeagut." 

At the mention of this name the whole assembly 
turned pale, except the nigger, who instantly struck up 
the Ram Hollins Polka. Unable to restrain my rage, 
I emptied two bottles without stopping. 

Fourth regular toast : " Jeff. Davis and the South- 
ern Confederacy — may they float over the l^orth 
American continent, so long as a loyal Confederate is 
himting for the last ditch." 

Air : Bragg'^s Murfreesbord' Lament, 

Fifth regular toast : " The Press of ITew Orleans." 

Eesponse by my Idiotic Boy, James Buchanan Mac- 
pherson, Jr., whose noble and patriotic address was re- 
ceived with shouts of applause; and the moment my 
Idiotic Boy sat do^vn, he was surrounded by the great- 
est secessionists of the city, and by foreign subjects, 
who shook him by the hand, and told him he talke^"^ 
much like their greatest sages, that he ought no longe. 
to be called an idiot. 

But a chap who hadn't said much previously, but had 
sat reading the newspapers, approached me and said : 
" Mr. Macpherson — for your genius and patriotism I 



52 THE MACPHEESON LETTEKS. 

have the greatest respect ; but as for your boy, he is a 
humbug. The speech which he palmed off on the 
audience is not original, but was stolen bodily from the 
Picayunes editorials of the iTth and 19th inst., with 
a few alterations for the better ; and for my part, I con- 
sider the young man's idiocy fully established." He 
then handed me copies of the papers referred to, and, 
upon examining them, I found that my poor boy had 
copied his speech, word for word, from them, with some 
trifling alterations, and I ordered him to leave the 
house. '' The name of Macpherson," I said, " is the 
synonym of honor, and the undying antagonist of pla- 
giarism, and I do this to show you that the man whom 
you this night feed, will sacrifice paternal endearment 
to the principles of integrity." 

Yolunteer toasts were now called for, and arising 
with my most fascinating bow, I proposed, " The 
Ladies." To which the JN'oble Woman responded: 
" The ladies of this City, that is, them that deserves to 
be called ladies, is true to the Confederacy; for the 
moment that a female is decently civil to a Yankee, she 
should, and in my estimation does, forfeit the name of 
lady. I hope the time will come when, like the royal 
Saxons, from whom we have descended, we may drink 
champagne from the skulls of our enemies ; and when 
the freedom of speech and of the press shall be restored, 
so that those who whisper Union may be hung to a 
lamp-post." 

As the ]N"oble "Woman uttered these sublime and 
patriotic sentiments, I was animated with overpowering 
admiration, and springing to my feet, I cried : ' O 
Hebe ! step-daughter of cloud-compelling Jove, and 



MACPHEESON IN DISGRACE. D6 

spouse of serpent-strangling Hercnles, now indeed do I 
believe that Jupiter dismissed thee from the skies, and 
sent thee to 'New Orleans ! Snch elevated sentiments 
as the beautiful being before me has expressed, could 
not have emanated from lips wholly mortal, and verily 
do I believe that the sweet orator who just took her 
seat is the Hebe of the South, crowned with immortal 
youth I " 

Champagne now flowed down the table in torrents, 
and the scene became one of unalloyed enjoyment. 
Youth, beauty, genius, there mingled together in songs 
of sweet accord to the Confederacy, until one by one 
the guests disappeared, leaving me alone beneath the 
spacious canopy, with an unfinished bottle before me. 
I tried to think of a subject for my next letter, but all 
was dim, uncertain, and confused. As clouds driven by 
the wdnds chase each other fitfully across the pale 
moon's face, even so flitted the thoughts and visions of 
the undersigned ; and as the hollow sea at last engulfs 
the wrecked mariners struggling vainly for life, even so 
were the thoughts of Macpherson, vainly struggling 
for shape, form, and consistency, lost in the wide ocean 
of unconsciousness. 

And in conclusion, let me warn young men never to 
drink any thing intoxicating ; for now it was that the 
name of Macpherson was first brought into disgrace. 
I fell under the table in a condition of drunken insen- 
sibility, from which I Avas partially aroused the next 
morning by a scream from the Noble Woman and her 
daughters. 

They, in fact, entered the dining-room the next 
morning after the great festival, and there discovered 



54 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

me stretched npon tlie floor, witli tlie detested flag 
whicli Tte had so eagerly trodden under foot wrapped 
about my j)erson, as I had mistaken it far a Confederate 
blanket. Incensed at an insnlt so gross, the J^oble 
Woman and her daughters, without giving me time to 
arouse and explain, fell upon me with broomsticks and 
pokers, driving me into the street. I was still too 
drunk to realize what had happened, and actually 
walked the whole length of Canal-street wrapped in 
the folds of that detested flag, exciting the aduxiration 
of all Yankees, the indignation of Confederates, the 
grin of darkies, and the loud yells of a procession of 
boys who followed me to my lodgings. There niy Idiotic 
Boy tore the hated emblem from the person of his ven- 
erated father, and we put back to Madisonville, without 
stopping once to drink. 

Yours in disgrace, 

James B. Macpheeson. 



MACPHEESON AS A PHILOSOPHER. 55 



CHAPTEE YII. 

Macpherson setting- up as a Confederate Philosopher 
EXPLAINS the Distinction of Races to his Idiotic Boy. 
— Advent, History, and Adventures of the Unhappy 
Cuss. — Macpherson captured by Duryea's Zouaves. — 
Interview with the "Southern Source," etc., etc. 

Note. — It is well known tliat " tlie cliivalry" were accustomed, be- 
fore the war, to claim for tliemselves superiority of blood, culture, 

and refinement. The reader will need no instruction to recognize 

in the " Unhappy Cuss," a representative of that class of Northerners 
who used to come to the South, and change their principles with the 
climate ; and who were prepared to change them as often as their 

pecuniary interests required. Contraband trade across Lake Pont- 

chartrain v/as carried on to a considerable extent, and at great risk ; 
the cargoes frequently falling into the hands of the military. But 
when the rascals succeeded in eluding the military and getting their 

cargoes into the market, they realized rich returns. About the 

time this letter was written, Pontchatoula, a village in Eastern 
Louisiana, was captured by an expedition under Colonel Clark, con- 
sisting of the Sixth Michigan regiment and the Second Duryea's 

Zouaves (165th New York). "News through Southern Sources," 

was the title under which the secession press of New Orleans was ac- 
customed to publish the mild sensation reports of rebel victories 
that were sent from Jackson and Mobile, to comfort the faithful seces- 
sionists of the Crescent City. These reports were frequently without 
the slightest foundation in truth, and the " Southern Source" became 
the synonym of unblushing mendacity. 

Madison viLLE, La., 

March 28tli, 1863. 

Sir : — It was a cloudless and lovely afternoon, and a 
refreshing breeze brought to my nostrils all tlie com- 
mingled odors of Madisonville, as I sat in the open door 
of my Hospitable Abode, half asleep. J\Iy mind wandered 
back to Plato, the greatest philosopher of the G-reeks, and 



56 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

I therefore determined to set up as a Confederate Philos- 
opher. It was not long before an opportunity of enter- 
ing upon this new and honorable career presented itself; 
for my Idiotic Boy approached and asked me what a 
Yankee is. I replied : " An abolitionist." 

" What is an abolitionist ?" inquired the imbecile 
youth. 

" A Hessian," I answered. 

" What is a Hessian ?" persisted the youth. 

" Sweet Idiot !" I said, " the human family is divided 
into two great classes — Southerners and Yankees. The 
Southerners are a superior race, and inevitable gentle- 
men. On the other hand, all who are not born inside 
the Confederate lines are Yankees, Abolitionists, and 
Hessians, which, in the Confederate lexicon, are synony- 
mous terms. The Yankees are an inferior race by 
birth, and are forever unfit to associate on terms of 
social equality with Southerners. My advice to all 
future generations is. Be born in the Confederacy. 
Otherwise, they will lack that chivalric and indescri- 
bable grace which belongs to every white man born in 
the Confederacy — that charm which clings to your re- 
vered father, and which, thank heaven, I can visibly 
trace in thee, my poor. Idiotic Boy." 

Advent df the TJnliajpjpy Cuss, 

The Idiot wept for joy, and clasping him to my bosom 
in a glow of paternal pride and fondness, we mingled 
our Confederate tears together, when the touching and 
beautiful scene was interrupted by the apj)roaching 
footsteps of a stranger, whose grief-stricken countenance 
unmistakably indicated that he was the Unhappy Cuss. 



57 

" Who art tlioii ? whence comest, and whither goest f 
I inquired. 

" I am," he answered " a victim- of the greatest mis- 
fortune that can fall to the lot of articulate-speaking 
men !" 

" Alas ! wretched one," I answered, " make known 
the cause of this calamity, and I pledge my assistance." 

" Thanks, generous and sublime Macpherson !" quoth 
the stranger, " great and admired Confederate philoso- 
pher, for thy proffered help ; bnt, alas ! my malady is 
beyond mortal aid !" 

" Unhappy Cuss !" I exclaimed, in a tone of meek 
pity ; " Despair is the twin-brother of Death, and the 
system of philosophy I am abont to bring to light, em- 
braces this great principle, that when a man won't 
stand by himself, no one is longer obligated to stand by 
him." 

"V/'isest of all Confederates!" responded the Un- 
happy Cuss, " greatest of living teachers ! thy maxims 
of philosophy may place thy name on record as the 
Confederate Plato, but they cannot heal a bleeding 
spirit, nor bind np a wounded heart. My malady is of 
the blood ; I inherited it at birth ; I inhaled it with 
the air I breathed, and no medicine in the world can 
do m_e good." 

"Explain," I said, "this leprous distilment which 
hath blighted thy young hopes. Speak, Unhappy 
Cuss !" 

" I w411 unfold to thee the great secret of my life," 
quoth he ; " but let me whisper it, for I have not the 
courage to pollute the air with these fearful words. 
He then rolled over three times in the dirt, and placing 



58 THE macph:^son letters. 

Ills lips close to my ear, while a look of ghastly desx^air 
flitted across his protruding under-jaw, whispered these 
fearful words : 

'' IhoA^e Yankee Mood in my 'veins /" 
As the Unhappy Cuss said the above words, he was 
seized with spasms, and fell rolling in the dust at my 
feet. The Idiotic Boy, who had been a silent but tear- 
ful spectator of the scene, immediately threw a barrel 
of rain water upon his prostrate form, and I rubbed his 
head with an inkstand until consciousness once more 
returned. 

History of- the Unhappy Cuss. 

He then proceeded to imfold his woful tale. "I 
am," he said, " a native of Connecticut. My ancestors 
came from England in the Mayflower. They were, in 
fact, adherents of those detestable Puritans and Roimd- 
heads, who had the insolence to overthrow a King, and 
cut his head ofl:' to boot. I Vv^as taught to believe in 
those bloody vo*etches for saints, and I also thought 
that the American Union was the greatest monument 
of wisdom and liberty ever erected by the hands of 
mortal men. Every 4th of July I was drunk for a 
week in honor of George Washington and the United 
States, and ' Yankee Doodle' was my favorite air. 

"Fortune at last decreed that I should leave my 
native land and come to I^ew Orleans. As I stood on 
the deck of the vessel, and saw the hills of New Eng- 
land sink in the distant horizon, my-ej'fes Vvxre filled 
with tears, and I vowed that never, while life should 
last, would I prove recreant in thought or deed, to 
those great principles of national unity which were so 



THE "unhappy cuss." 59 

impressed upon my affections. But the moment tlie 
warm breezes of the Sonth touched me, I began to real- 
ize a change. It seemed to me that the Roundheads 
ought to have been whipped by the Cavaliers, and that 
virtue triumphed with the restoration of Stuart's cavalry. 

" The instant I set foot on the levee at New Orleans, 
the scales fell from my eyes, and I was seized with 
shame for my Yankee blood. I swore that I hated 
Yankees, and this patriotic sentiment grew day by day 
until it goaded me on to deeds of bloodshed and theft. 
I carefully studied the habits of Southern society, and 
carried a revolver in each breeches pocket, and a bowie- 
knife and corn-cutter in my belt. I knocked down a 
nigger and cursed the Yankees at every public gather- 
ing ; and when secession got under way, I hung three 
Union men to a lamp-post with my own hands, stole 
five thousand dollars in cash, and out-confederated the 
Confederates in my devotion to Southern independence." 

As the Unhappy Cuss closed his narrative, a glow of 
Confederate pride overspread his features, and my class- 
ical mind arose to the full height of the sublime occa- 
sion. "Benignant stranger!" I exclaimed, "such is 
the glory of the Confederacy that its light strikes dumb 
every Yankee who sets foot upon its sacred soil, and he 
cannot wag his tongue except in praise of the Confed- 
eracy. I hail thee, Unhappy Cuss, as a Confederate 
Yankee. But you will excuse me if I decline to in- 
troduce you to Mrs. Macpherson ; for while I admit 
the great worth of a man who is ready to fight and 
steal for the Confederac}^, I cannot v^elcome him on 
terms of social equality, if he has Yankee blood in his 



60 THE MACPHBESON LETTEES. 

Mrs. Macpherson now entered the house and tm^ned 
up her nose at the Yankee Cuss, and remarked that the 
person could sit down at the second table. 

The next day was Jeff. Davis's fast and humiliation, 
and the Cuss and I went to church. The parson 
preached from the words : " Hold fast^ It was very 
convenient, for we had nothing in the house to eat, and 
I could starve the guest without a violation of the laws 
of hospitality. We both got drunk, however, as a Con- 
federate humiliation, and the Cuss opened to me a 
great plan of speculation. 

" I have," he said, " a scheme of wealth, which will 
make us both richej than Judah P. Benjamin. Phi- 
losophy is good in its way, but let me tell you, Mac- 
pherson, that philosophy don't pay. Hast thou Con- 
federate treasury notes ?" 

" I have only $95,000 by me at present," I replied. 

"That is just the amount I want," answered the 
Cuss. "I have run the blockade with a satchel of 
quinine and salt, which cost me $150 in I^ew Orleans, 
and which I have already disposed of for $150,000. I 
want $95,000 more, which will enable me to buy a 
schooner and load her with cotton, and with this I will 
run the blockade and sell it in ISTew Orleans, and will 
divide the profits, wdiich will be perfectly enormous." 

" Give me thine honest hand !" I cried aloud. 

" Give me thy treasury notes !" responded the Un- 
happy Cuss. 

I gave him all the money I had in the world, and we 
immediately started for Pontchatoula. We hid in a 
swamp, and waded in the water above our knees for 
twenty-four hours, in order to escape observation, until 



A JOINT COTTON SPECULATION". 61 

we found a man wlio was ready to deal with ns, and it 
w^as not lono; before a scliooner was filled with cotton 
ready for shipment. I noticed that the Cnss made the 
purchase entirely in his own name, and did not recog- 
nize me at all, except to make me run of errands. 
When I required an explanation of this, he replied in 
the following noble and patriotic words : 

" You, Macpherson," he said, " are too great a man 
to mix yourself up with the aifairs of material wealth. 
That occupation belongs wholly to the Yankee mind. 
You, who are a great philosopher, and in whose veins 
courses only Confederate blood, should not bend the 
gigantic intellectual energies of your mammoth brain to 
any such grovelling object. No, no ! — leave that to me^ 
and I'll fix the thing for you." 

As he was paying this just tribute to my intellectual 
worth, the earth suddenly trembled beneath our feet, 
as if suffering in the throes of mortal agony ; while a 
howl of terror and frenzied panic rolled through the 
swamp in which we were situated. A whizzing noise 
penetrated the branches of the trees, and pale with 
abject fear, we saw the Gorillas dashing wildly through 
the woods in confusion, crying out in tones like those 
of Stentor, the Grecian warrior whose voice was louder 
than the combined voice of fifty men : 

" The Yanks ! the Yanks are upon us !" 

On they flew, like the winds, while the Unhappy 
Cuss and myself, were transfixed to the earth, with 
amazement and fright. Soon the woods around us 
flashed with the fire of musketry, and the highway 
swarmed with the red-breeches, wdiich, in my terror, I 
believed to be devils, like those in the opera, who carry 



62 THE MACPIIEKSON LETTERS. 

off Don Giovanni, as he is taking a di-ink of champagne. 
Tlie next thing in the strange chapter of my adven- 
tures, I was sniTonnded by a sqnad of the red-breeches, 
with fierce looks and flashing bayonets, who demanded 
an immediate and unconditional surrender to Dmyea's 
Zouaves. I replied that the proud chivalric blood of 
Macpherson, was at any time prepared to be shed for 
the Confederacy, but that while I had a leg to stand on, 
or an arm to smite with, I would never surrender to a 
Yankee. 

MacjpTierson a Captive. 

"Fiddlesticks!" replied the Zouave, rapping me on 
the head with the butt of his musket. My hands were 
then tied behind me and I was carried to the command- 
ing officer, a prisoner of war. But let it be known to 
all men forever, that I did not make any formal sur- 
render. 

I then looked around me to learn the destiny of the 
Unhappy Cuss, and expected to see him hanging to a 
limb. I knew that the Yankees prosecute this war on 
a plan of such bloody and barbarous ferocity, that 
neither of us had the slightest chance of life. Imagine 
my amazement, therefore, when I saw the Unhappy 
Cuss seated on a log, side by side with a Yankee officer, 
taking a drink, and conversing in the most friendly 
manner. 

" I am glad to see you here," I heard him say to the 
vile Yankee. " I have a load of cotton here ready to 
be shipped to l^ew Orleans, and I have been waiting 
my opportunity for several weeks to slip off with it, and 
now I shall be able to do so. I hail you as a deliverer 



THE ^* SOUTHEEN SOURCE." 63 

from the cruel oppressions of tlie traitors ; there is not 
an impulse in my heart v/hich is not true to the flag of 
the Union. Let's take a drink ! " 

" Liar ! Base clog ! " I exclaimed, " the cotton is mine, 
and you are a Confederate according to your own con- 
fessions." 

" Who is that ? " asked the Yankee officer, pointing 
to me. 

" A crazy man whom I hired by the day to watch 
my cotton," replied the Cuss, " but I discharged him 
for evident insanity." 

Eeader ! are you human ? Has your compassion 
been eviscerated ? Think of such an insult to me, the 
great light of Confederate literature, and the Plato of 
Madisonville, and weep with pity for the depravity of 
man. My hands were untied, and I was told to go 
home, for the Yankee commander said he pitied an in- 
sane man ; to which the Unhappy Cuss responded that 
for this reason he pitied the whole Confederacy. 

" Good by, Macpherson," he said. " I am grateful 
for your hospitality, and I admit the inferiority of the 
Yankee race." 

" Liar ! — swindler ! — thief! — ^traitor ! — ^villain ! " I re- 
plied, and started for home. 

Interview with the Southern Source. 

As I was going along, I saw a chap dodge from be- 
hind a tree in the swamp, and wave his hand to me. I 
approached, when in a mysterious tone he whispered : 

" I am a Southern Source ! " 

" What's new, my honest friend ? " I asked him. 



64 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

" MiTcli," he said, at the same time waving a news- 
paper before my eyes. I reached out to look at it, 
T^hen he suddenly slipped off and put the paper in his 
pocket. " Seven hundred and ninety dollars," said he. 
" The brokers in l^ew Orleans will give me §800, but 
I will take $Y90 here." 

" I must first know whether the news is worth the 
money," I answered. 

" Did ever a Southern Source deceive the public?" 
he inquired. "Is not my name and reputation for 
veracity a shield against such base imputations ? But 
I will give you one little item to show that the paper 
is worth it. It contains an account of Jeff. Davis in 
E-ew York." 

" Jeff". Davis in 'New York ! " I exclaimed, raising 
my hands in gratitude; "then is Pontchatoula aveng- 
ed!" I borrowed the money, and the Southern Source 
disappeared, legging it through the woods wheii last 
seen. 

I proceeded to examine the paper, when I discovered 
that it was of the 29th October, 1358, and contained 
an account of Jeff. Davis's speech at a democratic 
meeting in Palace Garden, New York. Let me tell 
you that the man who sold that paper upon false pre- 
tenses, is a disgrace to Southern Sources ; for the char- 
acter of these Sources is* above reproach or the sus- 
picion of falsehood ; and whatever you read in a Con- 
federate newspaper you can safely accept as the unadul- 
terated gospel of truth. 

I must draw my letter to a close. I have once more 
reached my hospitable abode at Madisonville, and, as I 
write these closing sentences, I look back upon the ex- 



SHAMEFULLY SWINDLED. 05 

perience of the past week witfi a philosophic eje. 
I have been shamefully swindled by the Unhappy Cuss 
and the Sonthern Source, but my faith in the Confed- 
eracy is not dimmed. The light of victory shall flash 
upon our banners, and I pledge my word that if the 
base Yankee foe ever takes possession of Madisonville, 
he will first walk over the prostrate and mangled body 
of 

YourSj philosophically, 

James B. Macpherson. 



66 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

The Great Charity Fair. 

NoTE.7-Mr. N. 0. J. Tisdale, formerly President of the New Or- 
leans City Gas Company, and a well-known registered enemy of the 
United States, who finally left the city and went into the " Confede- 
racy," held a fair at his residence, professedly for the benefit of the 
Protestant Orphan Asylum, but really, it was generally believed, for 
the purpose of raising funds with which to clothe the rebel prisoners 
then in New Orleans. In the name of charity, tickets were sold to 
all who would purchase, and many Union men and women purchased, 
not suspecting the true character of the entertainment. The fair was 
a full-blooded secession demonstration ; the rebel colors were dis- 
played, rebel airs were played on the piano, and certain rebel poems, 
printed secretly, were sold at twenty-five cents apiece. These poems 
were entitled respectively, " The Battle of the Handkercliiefs," and 
*' The Battle of the Fair." The authorship is attributed here to Mac- 
pherson's Idiotic Boy ; but they were really written by a young lady 
of New Orleans, who has composed several ingenious secession poems, 
and who sometimes signs herself Emily M. Washington. Mr. Tis- 
dale was arrested, and his trial, which continued several days, at- 
tracted great attention in New Orleans, and was the subject of com- 
ment in the Northern papers. While witnesses were brought by the 
prosecution who swore positively that " The Bonnie Blue Flag" was 
performed, and other secession demonstrations made, Mr. Tisdale 
brought witnesses in large numbers, who swore that they neither 
heard that air, nor witnessed any thing indicating sympathy for the 
rebel cause. The court, in its decision, acquitted Mr. Tisdale, on the 
ground that these negative witnesses for the defense were present all 
the evening, and that it was a moral impossibility that they should 
not have heard the air had it actually been performed. 1'he ar- 
rest and punishment of the Idiotic Boy for hurrahing for JelF. Davis, 
was intended to exhibit the folly of the light punishment of such of- 
fenses, wliich at one time consisted of a small fine. It was currently 
reported and believed that every fine imposed for such offenses was 
promptly paid by the secessionists, and a little purse given to the 
" martyr" as a bounty on impudent treason. It is said tlwit this 
bounty was sometimes as high as fifty dollars ; so that one who 



APOSTROPHE TO THE TCHEFUNCTA. 67 

should Imrrali for Jeff. Davis could do so without expense to himself, 

and make a handsome little sum out of it besides. The author 

cannot close this note without expressing his admiration for the bold 
and able manner in which the prosecution in the Tisdale case was 
conducted by the City Attorney, Mr. L. Madison Day. 

Madisontille, La., 

April 4th, 1863. 

Sir: It was midniglit, and tlie pale beams of tlie 
heaven-traversing moon shone down upon the pelhicid 
bosom of Lake Pontchartram, and streamed through 
the crevices of my Dilapidated, Hospitable Abode, and 
silence and slumbers prevailed among living men. But 
I, moved with pity for the wrongs of the Confederacy, 
and, like much-23lanning Ulysses, revolving many 
thoughts in my mind, was no more able to sleep than 
w^as Calypso, inconsolable at the departure of her Gre- 
cian hero. Therefore, I arose from my lofty couch, 
and in gloomy meditation, walked to the banks of the 
Tchefuncta, whose beautiful, muddy water, seemed to 
be a reflex of my own sombre and philosophic thoughts. 
Seating myself upon the all-nourishing earth, I thus 
poured out my soul to the noble river : 

" O Tchefuncta ! thou, whose beautiful mud is as 
clear as the hopes of the Confederacy, listen to the 
moans of thy philosophic son ! Tell me, ye lonely 
depths of dirt ! whether in a time of national calamity, 
with the stars and stripes floating over the blood-stained 
heights of Pontchatoula, a philosophic mind may devote 
itself to the pursuit of occult truth, or whether it be not 
the duty of every Confederate, even though like me, he 
be gifted with a mammoth brain, to bare his arm in the 
cause of his country ? I pause for a reply." 

Having delivered this eloquent apostrophe to the 



68 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

noble riyer, I fell partially asleep, when I heard a mys- 
terious voice, crying from the depths : 

" Bare the arm ! bare the arm !" 

" I will !" I responded ; " for in that voice I recog- 
nize a Confederate sign and miracle, surpassing in won- 
der the dreams of the Picayune ; and I shall forthwith 
proceed with my long-cherished design of forming a 
Congo Body Guard." 

I then went to sleep, when I was suddenly aroused 
by a kick in the back, which sent me headforemost into 
the muddy depths of the sluggish Tchefuncta. 

" Spirit !" I exclaimed, " who but recently spake to 
me from these waters, unless, indeed, my eyes were 
bent on vacancy, and I with incorporeal air did hold 
discourse, receive thy son, and assist him to reach dry 
land !" I then waded back, comparing myself to 
Yenus, who rose from the sea, while the moist-blowing 
west wind wafted her in soft foam along the waves, 
and the gold-filleted Seasons received her on the shores 
of Cyprus, clothed her in immortal garments, placed a 
golden wreath upon her head, and led her to the assem- 
bly of the gods. And as I wallowed in the mud of the 
noble river, I exclaimed : " I am the Yenus of Madi- 
sonville, arising from the Tchefuncta, and waiting for 
immortal honors !" 

I then stepped upon the bank, when a wild mule 
kicked at me and brayed, and I found that I had mis- 
taken the mule's familiar voice for a Confederate mir- 
acle, and that the heels of the said animal had given 
me midnight baptism. ]N"evertheless, I accepted the 
advent of the mule as a celestial sign, and immediately 
mounting the same, I started for New Orleans. 



THE SOLITARY HOESEMAN. 69 

The Solitary Horseman. 

I liad proceeded seventy-five rods on mj journey, 
wlien my attention was attracted by the clatter of a 
horse's hoofs, and soon the Solitary Horseman, whose 
appearance and history have been fully described by 
the late Mr. James, bnrst upon my vision. Immedi- 
ately I apostrophized him as the Confederacy, for the 
seal of the JSTew I^ation is to be a Cavalier, and I found 
the Solitary Horseman to be the heau ideal of a Confed- 
erate gentleman. 

]^o sooner had I spoken, than he dismounted his foam- 
ing steed, and embracing my knees, exclaimed : 

" At last I behold thee. Confederate Plato, Yenus of 
Madisonville, and chiefest light of Confederate letters ! 
I am the delegate of three thousand citizens of ]N"ew Or- 
leans, who have charged me to express to you the pro- 
found respect which they entertain for your august 
person, and invite you to attend a Grand Charity Fair 
to-morrow evening, at the residence of a gentleman 
whose heart is as true to the Confederacy as is Jacob 
Barker's to his safe. Charity," continued the Cavalier, 
" like the dews of heaven, falls upon the lowly and the 
poor ; and when I think of the hard lot of the unhappy 
orphan, cast upon the heartless world without a guiding 
and protecting hand, my heart is torn with a thousand 
pangs of agony, and the hot blood goes rushing wildly 
through my swollen veins. O JVIacpherson ! let us 
weep for the unhappy lot of the poor and debased 
orphan !" 

Tlie Solitary Horseman burst out in a fit of inconso- 
lable tears as he uttered this sublimely charitable sen- 



70 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

timent, and I was about to press his gentle hand in 
mine, when the Wild Mule gave an awful kick wdiich 
frustrated my affectionate design. The brave Cavalier 
then mounted and we dashed furiously along the high- 
way. 

" Is this Fair political ?" I asked. 

"It is charitable, charitable, Macpherson," he replied 
— " a Fair in behalf of the Protestant Uniform Asy- 
lum, an institution for the manufacture of graybacks, 
where the weary Confederate may find rest, and ^the 
naked Confederate may become clothed." 

" AVho hath contributed thereunto ?" I inquired. 

Much to my astonishment, the tender-hearted Cava- 
lier burst out in a tit of uncontrollable langliter, which 
arose far above the clatter of his horse's hoofs. " That's 
the joke !" he shouted, as his beautiful laugh rolled 
through the lonely swamp; ''that's the joke! — the 
Yankees have contributed ! Tickets were sold for ten 
cents apiece, and in the blessed name of Charity, sweet 
mother of the helpless, we sold many tickets to Union 
men and w^omen, and Yankee officers!" 

Heining in my Wild Mule, I cried aloud : " Then 
indeed do I wash my hands of this matter ; for I will 
take no part in a Fair, even for Charity, if base Yankee 
gold is mingled with the spotless currency of the Con- 
federacy !" 

The Cavalier whistled, as he drew from his pocket a 
Richmond Examiner, and read the price of gold, $5.25, 
and an advance of two hundred per cent, in a week. 
" Be not too hasty. Confederate Plato," he observed. 
" You are aware that the end justifies the means ; and 
in the present instance the great end to be achieved is' 



MACrilKKSON AT THE FAIR. 71 

to clothe the Confederacy. To rob a Yankee or to 
deceive a Yankee is the highest virtue of the Confed- 
eracy. And since the grinding tyranny of the United 
States v^ill not permit us to oj^erate openly, we invoke 
the broad mantle of Charity, which we will cut up and 
make into Confederate uniforms !" 

" Give me thine honest hand, sweet messenger of be- 
nevolence !" I exclaimed. " Charity, indeed, shall 
cover a multitude of sins ; and the mantle of Charity 
is gray in the Confederacy." 

It was night before we reached the city, and as the 
mud of the Tchefuncta still adhered conspicuously to 
my person, I determined to go to the St. Charles and 
take a bath before attending the Fair. But as we were 
riding towards that massive structure, the Solitary 
Horseman suddenly reined in his steed, and pointing 
to a palatial abode, said : "This is the place — listen !" 

A confused din of lovely voices, strains of angelic 
music, and trippings of the light fantastic toe came to 
my ears, grateful as the odor of Louisiana Rum to a 
thirsty Confederate; for I knew that every lovely 
voice was a Confederate voice, every strain a Confed- 
erate strain, and every light fantastic toe a Confeder- 
ate toe. 

Maopherson^s Extraordina/ry Advent at the Fair, 

I was about to hasten to the baths, when my "Wild 
Mule kicked with extraordinary violence, lifting me 
clean from his back, tossing me over the fence and 
through the open door of the palatial abode, and land- 
ing me in the hall on my face, with a force which 
caused the blood to ooze freely from my nostrils, and 



72 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

mingle its crimson hues with the mud of the Tche- 
functa, which still adhered conspicuously to my person. 

The hall was crowded with beautiful Confederate 
girls ; and as I arose from my recumbent posture, 
with my classcial mind slightly confused by the vio- 
lence of the concussion, I imagined myself in a Yestal 
temple. I therefore cried aloud ; " O lovely Confeder- 
ate Yestals, who attend the sacred flame, fear not me, 
for I am the Yenus of Madisonville ; and my only re- 
gret is that, placing her hand upon the head of Jupiter, 
your goddess swore perpetual celibacy." The Yestals 
then joined hands and danced around me, to the en- 
livening strains of the Pontchatoula Quickstep^ and the 
Great Host approaching, bade me welcome to the 
abode of Charity. 

" Allow me to inquire," I said, " whether you have 
obtained permission to hold this Fair ?" 

"I did not deem it necessary," he replied, "for I 
consulted a gentleman who has held a similar concern 
at his house, and he assured me that permission was 
not necessary. I trust the time will soon come when 
we can worship the Confederacy according to the dic- 
tates of our own consciences, with none to molest or 
make us afraid, and when the ladies can spit in the 
face of Yankees in the streets with impunity." 

"Amen!" I responded to this noble and patriotic 
prayer. 

The Great Host lovingly took my arm, and, conduct- 
ing me to an obscure corner, pointed in a mysterious 
manner to a pile of j)ublications. " To you," he said, 
" the great light of Confederate letters, I need not ex- 
patiate upon the beauties and blessings of literature ; 1 



CONFEDERATE TKACTATKS. 73 

need not tell jou of the power of the press, which en- 
ables ns to poison the public mind, and inundate the 
land with Confederate principles." He then handed 
nie two beautiful Confederate tracts, one them entitled 
'' The Battle of the Ilandker chief s^^ and the other 
" The Battle of the Fair^^ and informed me that the 
price was two bits each, which sum I gladly paid as 
he informed me the proceeds of those two beautiful 
and patriotic publications would go towards clothing * 
the Confederacy. 

"Perhaps," he remarked, "you would like to see 
the author of those great works of genius and patri- 
otism." 

"I should rejoice to know him," I replied; "for 
herein I find the evidences of that peculiar genius and 
grace which belongs, in a greater or less degree, to 
every thing Confederate." 

" You shall be gratified," he answered ; and he im- 
mediately led me face to face with my Idiotic Boy ! 

" There he is !" said the Great Host ; " look upon 
the author of those beautiful productions of the human 
intellect." 

My double surprise may be imagined. I supposed 
the imbecile youth was quietly sleeping in his mother's 
arms ; but to find him there, surrounded by a galaxy 
of youth and beauty, and to learn that he was a full- 
fledged Confederate author, overpowered me with 
amazement and gratitude. " Happy father of such a 
son !" I exclaimed, clasping him to my muddy bosom, 
" who in early life devotes the energies of his idiotic 
brain to the true path of rectitude, and contributes the 
efibrts of his intellect -to the great and heaven-ordained 



74 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

behests of Charity, by furnishing mental pabulum to 
the followers of the naked Confederacy !" 

Just then the Idiot dodged behind me, and pointing 
to a lady across the room, said : '' Shield me, for the 
love of heaven !" 

What is the row, sweet Idiot?" I inquired. 

" It is my misfortune to know that lady," he replied. 
**I have eaten at the same table, drank wine from the 
same bottle, played whist and euchre with the same 
cards. But she is a Union woman, and it will be a 
disgrace to recognize her here." 

'' Well said, dear Idiot," I responded. " But show 
yourself worthy of your revered father and of the Con- 
federacy you represent." 

" I will !" he exclaimed, tearing his hair with vehe- 
ment determination, and then walking coldly by the 
Yankee woman, without recognizing her. Afterwards 
he watched his opportunity and winked at her, in order, 
if possible, to save her good opinion without compro- 
mising himself. 

" Sir !" I said with a frown of Confederate displeas- 
ure upon my features, and addressing myself to the 
Great Host : " You are a registered enemy of the 
United States, and I was not prepared for the affront 
put upon me by the presence of a Yankee woman." 

" Gas !" responded the Great Host, his eyes gleam- 
ing like two burners, "you are over zealous. It is pos- 
sible that the vile tyranny under which we groan, will 
summon me to answer for this night's business, and 
the presence of a few Yankees is a shield against sus- 
picion." 

I now proceeded to examine the sj)acious apartments; 



. THE CONFEDERATE SEAL. 75 

and at every stej) I found something to gladden my 
Confederate heart. I learned that beautiful maidens 
of tender years had worked with the mothers of the 
city, day after day, and night after night, in manufac- 
turing miniature Confederate flags, which they brought 
here and sold at high prices, the proceeds all going 
into the Confederate treasury. I saw, also, Confeder- 
ate doll-babies, Confederate roosters and hens. Confed- 
erate pigs made of sugar. Confederate dogs, and Con- 
federate alligators, all manufactured by fair hands in 
obedience to the dictates of charity. But the princi- 
pal feature of the evening was a Confederate donkey, 
gayly caparisoned, on which sat my Idiotic Boy, wav- 
ing the proud banner of the New Nation, and winking 
at the girls. 

The Great Confederate Seal. 

*' That Donkey and that boy," remarked a bystander, 
" are the proper and fitting emblems of the Confed- 
eracy. I see that our Congress is discussing the pro- 
priety of adopting a Cavalier as the seal of the New 
Nation ; and I for one recommend Macpherson's Idiotic 
Boy mounted on a Donkey as the most expressive and 
appropriate Boy and Beast that can be found to repre- 
sent the Confederacy." 

It was suggested that I myself, mounted on my 
\Yild Mule, would do better; but the opinion of the 
audience was in favor of the Idiot, and so I yielded my 
claims gracefully, soothing my disappointed ambition 
with the gushing stream of paternal pride. 

During all this time the j)iano was sending forth its 
angelic strains, the keys thereof being thumbed by 



76 THE MACPHRESON LETTERS. 

snowy delicate fingers, whose gentle touch npon the 
temples might soothe a tiger's rage, or thaw the cold 
heart of a conqueror. The Bonnie Blue Flag was 
played, as the most popular air ; but whenever that air 
was struck, I observed that twelve persons immediately 
left the room, and put cotton in their ears. I demand- 
ed of the Great Host the cause of this extraordinary 
proceeding, which appeared to me to be an insult to 
the Confederacy. 

The Great Host applied his forefinger to the side of 
his nose, giving the end a twist and winking as he re- 
plied : 

"Witnesses!" 

" What witnesses !" I inquired. 

" You see, Macpherson," he replied, " that my case 
may come up in court, and it is possible that some who 
are here may have the baseness to testify that The 
Bonnie Blue Flag was performed on that piano. 
In such a case it will become necessary for me to prove 
that it was not played. So I have arranged to have 
twelve witnesses be present through the whole perform- 
ance and not hear it. If the tune was actually played 
it is morally certain that these twelve persons must 
have heard it; and these witnesses live in a Christian 
community, and are, as you will perceive, persons of 
the highest respectability. Cotton will do it, Mac- 
pherson — cotton will do it !" 

" Cotton is king," I answered ; " and yonr case is 
sure to succeed. When I was justice of the peace in 
Madisonville, a case came up precisely like yours. 
Citizen Jenkins accused my nephew, Peter Macpherson, 
of stealing a pig, and brought three creditable witnesses, 



MACPHEESON ON MEMORY. 'T'T 

who swore positively tliat tliey saw Peter steal him. 
But Pete ]:)roiight four men of the highest respectability, 
over from ISTew Orleans, who swore quite as positively 
that they did not see him steal the swinish animal ; and 
on this testimony I was bound to acquit him. E^egative 
testimony is sure to win in courts that take a proper 
view of events, particularly if the magistrate is an 
uncle of the accused, as in the case referred to." 

The night wore away, and our delightful Confederate 
communion strengthened our weary souls. At a late 
hour I was called on for a speech, and wishing to ap- 
pear in my true character, as a Confederate philosopher, 
I proceeded to deliver an original phrenological dis- 
course, on one of the most important bumps which the 
human head contains. 

Macpherson on Mew,ory. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said; "proud children of 
our great Confederate parent, and you of the rising 
generation ; as mile-boards are set up on the highway 
to indicate the direction in which the roads run, so 
hath nature built bumps on the human cranium, to in- 
dicate the bent of character, and the destiny of man. 

" The most important of these bumps indicates the 
organ of Memory ; and in looking around on this audi- 
ence I see by a glance at that bump that you are all 
Confederates. The Confederate bump of Memory is 
peculiar in this, that it has the gift of remembering 
every thing to its own credit and interest, with the 
most wonderful distinctness. Indeed, it remembers 
more than the facts will justify. At the same time it 
is wholly incapable of remembering any thing contrary 



To THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

to the plans, wishes, principles, and interests of the 
Confederacy. For instance, it remembers that George 
Washington was a Virginian, and a slaveholder ; but 
it forgets stubbornly and hopelessly that he was a 
strong Union man, and freed his slaves on his death- 
bed. It remembers that gold arose in 'New York to 
173, but it forgets that it tumbled down faster than it 
rose. It remembers that the Mississippi was sunk at 
Port Hudson, but it forgets that the Hartford and Al- 
batross went by. It remembers that Beauregard won 
the battle of Manassas, but it forgets that the Yankees 
whipped the devil out of us at Fort Donelson. Such, 
ladies, gentlemen, and rising generation, are the char- 
acteristics of the Confederate bump of Memory — char- 
acteristics of which I am proud, and which I see per- 
vade every head in this great charity fair. Were you 
called on to swear to-morrow before a Yankee court, 
whether a Confederate flag was displayed here to-night, 
could you remember seeing it ? No I Were you asked 
whether the Bonnie Blue Flag was played on that 
piano, could you remember that you heard it ? No 1 
Were you asked whether any disloyal sentiment has 
been expressed here to-night, could you remember hear- 
ing it ? No ! — for you are all loyal to the great princi- 
ples of the new nation, and may God bless you, and 
the Confederate bump of Memory forever !" 

Arrest of the Idiotic Boy. 

This speech was received with loud aj)plause, and 
we were about to separate, when a clamor arose in the 
street. " A Confederate rising ! — ^to arms ! — to arms 1" 



A. MAETYK OF FREEDOM. T9 

I shouted ; ' the day of deliverance lias come ! — Stone- 
wall Jackson lias arrived with nineteen hundred thou- 
sand patriots !" With this exclamation I rushed into 
the street, the excited assemblage following at my heels, 
when I found that my Idiotic Boy had been arrested 
for hurrahing for Jeff. Davis publicly, and basely im- 
prisoned in a Yankee jail. " Martyr of freedom !" I 
cried ; " I am proud that the spirit of the Macphersons 
has not been crushed, and I resign thee to a glorious 
death and a crown of martyrdom !" 

I found, however, thai the penalty for the offense 
was $2.50, and soon a purse of $200 was made up, the 
fine paid, and tliS boy released, with the balance jing- 
ling in his pocket. As he left the court-room he set up 
another tremendous roar for Jeff. Davis, when he was 
immediately arrested again, and fined $2.50 more. " I 
appeal to the Confederates," I said, " to assist my son 
to get his release from the vile Yankee tyrants." Im- 
mediately another contribution of $200 was made up, 
the fine paid, and the boy released, with a clear balance 
of $395 in his pocket ; and with this we unmediately 
returned to Madisonville. 

I must now conclude my eighth epistle to The Eea. 
What is writ is writ. Would it were worthier. The 
winding up reminds me that I am mortal; and as that 
is a subject I do not like to reflect upon, I turn my 
philosophic eye to the unfading glory of the Confeder- 
acy , and there I behold unending power and immortal 
honor. The stars shall fade, but the Confederacy shall 

endure forever. 

Yours, weekly, 

James B. Macpherson. 



80 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

P. S. — Since writing the above, I have received the 
following letter from mj son Louis T. Wigfall : 

Port Hudson, April 2. 
" Dad : — Give My love to the Great Hoast, and to the 
bewtiful ladies which attended the Charity Fare. I 
have received the uniform they sent Me, and it's the 
only rag of close I've had sense I sold the nine sutes 
which was given Me by the ladies as I left I^ew Or- 
leans on the Empire Parish. 

" While ar^ heart beats in My Bosom, it will vibrate 
with the Gratitude of 

Your patriotic Sun, 
Louis T. Wigfall Macpheeson. 



THE CONFEDEEATE ARCHIMEDES. 81 



CHAPTEE IX. 

The Confederate Arithmetic. 

Madisonvilee, La., 

April nth, 1863. 

Snj : — On Tuesday last I sat on tlie bottom of an in- 
verted brass kettle in my door-yard, training up my 
Idiotic Boy in tlie way be should go, and rejoicing to 
find bis demented brain so capable of absorbing tbe 
ideas which underlie the Confederacy. " I am," I said 
to him, " the Confederate Archimedes. IS^ever, since 
this great planetary system was called into existence, 
has there been a nation whose glory and power could 
compare with the Confederacy which I represent. 
Wherever the glorious flag of the new nation floats, 
freedom of speech and of the press prevails to an alarm- 
ing extent. 

" The resources of the Confederacy are inexhaustil)le. 
Ever since the formation of the Union, the South has 
supported the E'orth; and therefore it was, that as soon 
as the South withdrew from the concern, the ISTorth 
was reduced to poverty and famine. Grass now grows 
in Broajdway, and in the Central Park of I*^ew York. 
A reliable gentleman v/ho has just returned from that 
23lace, assures me that Jie pastured his horse in front of 
the Astor House, during his sojourn in that deserted 
and mined city. 

" But the Confederacy can never become impover- 
ished ; and I will now explain to you the principles of 

4-"- 



82 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

the Confederate Aritlmietic — ^principles of tlie greatest 
simplicity, yet productive of astounding results. 

" The Confederate Arithmetic has two rules, Multi- 
plication and Subtraction. Multiplication is only em- 
ployed in the affairs of the Confederacy, and Subtrac- 
tion in the affairs of the Federals. 

Tlie Confederate Miiltijplicatiooi-tahle. 

" The Confederate multiplication-table, my Sweet 
Idiot," I continued, " employs two numbers — and 50. 
multiplied by 50- equals 50. re|)resents the basis of 
Confederate currency, and by multiplying it by 50 you 
get $50 in cash. Multiply this by 50 again, and you 
have $2,500; and this once more multiplied by 50, 
gives you $125,000 ; and this again multiplied, gives 
you $6,250,000 ; and so on, until the Confederate Treas- 
ury groans beneath its enormous and insupportable 
burden of cash. 

" The rule here laid down also applies to military 
operations. A Colonel sends out a Captain on a scout- 
ing expedition, and represents the number of Yankee 
prisoners actually captured. This the Captain multi- 
plies by 50, and reports to the Colonel that he has 
bagged 50 Yankees. The Colonel then multiplies by 
50 in his report to the Brigadier General ; the Erigadier 
General multiplies by 50 in his report to the Division 
General ; the Division General multiplies by 50 in his 
report to the Commander of the Department; the 
Commander of the Department multiplies by 50 in his 
report to the Secretary of War ; the Secretary of "War 
multiplies by 50, and sends it to the Jackson Ajypeal / 
the editor of that sheet multiplies by 50 and prints it, 



CONFEDEEATE ARITHMETIC. 83 

and the Southern Source then multiplies by 50 and 
starts for ISTew Orleans, and by the time the report gets 
to the St. Charles Hotel, we have captured thirty-five 
trillion sixty-two billion and five hundred million 
(35,062,500,000,000) Yankee prisoners, as any one will 
see who will work out the sum according to the princi- 
ples of the Confederate Arithmetic. 

" Every thing in the Confederacy is multiplied by 50. 
But when we speak of the afiairs of the United States, 
w^e apply the second great rule of the Confederate 
Arithmetic, which is as follows : 

Confederate Bide of Subtraction, 
" Deduct fi'om every Federal nuiiiber twice its actual 
amount. Thus : a Federal scouting party captm-es 
100 Confederates. From this 100 you must deduct 
200, which leaves a balance of 100 in our favor ; and 
instead of the Yankees getting 100 Confederates, the 
Confederates get 100 Yankees. It was by this rule 
that Gen. Bragg defeated Rosecrans. 

" Thus, Sweet Idiot," I said, " I have explained to 
you those great fundamental laws of mathematics 
which underlie the Confederacy; and I am the Confed- 
erate Archimedes, he who was equally skilled in as- 
tronomy, geometry, mechanics, hydrostatics, and optics, 
in all of which he excelled, and produced many ex- 
traordinary inventions ; but, in my opinion, notwith- 
standing his miraculous skill as displayed in the defense 
of Syracuse, he never conceived an idea so grand as the 
Confederate Arithmetic." 

Yours, mathematically, 

James B. Macpherson. 



84 THE MACPHEESON LETTEKS. 



CHAPTEK X. 

HYMN OF SALVATION. 



BY JAMES B. MACPHKESON, 

Poet Laureate of Madisonville. 



Smite and slay tlie savage Yankee ! 

Break and pulverise liis bones I 
It is done ; and I -svill thank tliee. 

Great Confederate Paul Jones !* 

Lo ! E. Pluribus and C^num 

Now are rolling in the dirt ! 
Brave Confederate, who hast hewn 'em. 

Else and put on a clean shirt ! 

Now the Pelican is flopping 

His broad wings in feather high ; 
On, Confederacy ! no stopping — 

Every Yankee Dog shall die ! 

Never more an Extea Era 

Shall announce a blown-up Queen ;* 

Oh, P. Jones, you are my deary. 
And the biggest brick I've seen ! 

Light is breaking from the heaven ! 

Yea, it streams athwart the sky ! 
I myself can slay eleven— 

Every Yankee Dog shall die! 

New Orleans has been delivered ! 

Do you ask the reason why? 
Fate's designs shall be uncivered — 

Every Yankee Dog shall die ! 

"Queen of the West," a vessel captured by the rebels, after 
having run the Vicksburg batteries, and destroyed during the cam- 
paign of General Banks up the Teclie, in the spring of 1863. She 
was coitimanded by Fuller, who aspired to the title of the Confed- 
erate Paul Jones 1 



A SUBLIME FAITH. 85 



CHAPTER XI. 

Macpherson dedicates himself to War and Larceny. — 
He encounters the Honest Jew. 

Louisiana Lowlands Low, 

April 25tli, 1863. 

Sm: — For some time rumors of the most painful 
nature reached my ears, while, in my dilapidated hos- 
pitable abode at Madisonville, I was preparing my 
mind to offer my life in the sacred cause of the Con- 
federacy. I read in The Era that Gen. Banks had 
advanced from Brashear City with a large force of Hes- 
sians, and that the blessed sons of the Confederacy had 
been whipped, their gunboats destroyed, and their 
transports captured or sunk, while they were running 
before the vile Yankee foe or falling into the hands of 
Ibid. But I did not believe it. I swore it could not 
be true ; for with that sublime faith in the Confederacy 
which leads our people to receive Confederate currency 
and to set facts at defiance, I scorned these statements 
as Yankee inventions and falsehoods. I knew that I 
was the only contributor for The Era who dared to 
speak the truth, and blow the Confederate trumpet, 
and so long as the True Delta and the Picayune had 
not a word to say on the subject, which they hadn't 
for many days, I possessed my sublime soul in Con- 
federate patience, and clothed and fortified my serene 
mind with stoical Confederate disbelief in every word 
uttered by a Yankee. 



50 THE MACPHKgSON LETTERS. 

But on Wednesday last I was aroused from my dream 
of security and Confederate bliss, when the Picayune^ 
a paper in which I have full faith, broke the long and 
pleasing silence that had sealed its lips, and made 
known to me that there was at least some foundation 
for the diabolical reports in The Era which had ap- 
peared from time to time a week or ten days before. 

Then it was that, resting my teeth upon the leg of a 
chair, 1 gave myself up to momentous meditations. 
Before my mind arose the incredible vision of Confed- 
erates flying before Yankees, and I cried aloud : " Ig- 
noble, debased villain that I am !— why sit I here while 
my countrymen starve and run leaving their bones 
behind them to bleach upon the bloody field of car- 
nage, and while one of the children of my loins lan- 
guishes in a loathsome dungeon in Baronne street ? 
Arise, Macpherson ! abandon the seductive paths of 
philosophy and poetry, buckle on a C. S. plate, shoulder 
a double-barrelled shot-gun, and plunge headlong into 
the deep-flowing tide of Yankee homicide and larceny !" 

I then arose in my terrible might, Avhile my dilapi- 
dated hospitable abode trembled to the top of the 
stove-pipe beneath the massive heel of my new boots, 
with which I smote the quaking ground ; and I swore 
by the mud image of Jefl". Davis, which had just been 
set up by my Idiotic Boy, that I never would wash my 
face or taste a drop of w^ater until I had exterminated 
every Yankee, man, woman, and child, in the States of 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the First Con- 
gressional District of Texas ! 

"Not drink any water, James !" exclaimed my wife, 
in a tone of astonishment ; " what will you drink ?" 



THE HONEST JEW. . 87 

" Knm !" I answered, with a voice like bellowing 
thunder ; " rum, my love ! and rum alone !" 

Tiierefore I dedicated myself to the god of war: 
" O Mars !" I exclaimed, " the fatherless son of Juno, 
whose delight was in contest and strife, and who wast 
a warrior of severe countenance, with a cuirass and an 
Argive shield upon thine arm ! —thee I invoke, and to 
thee I dedicate my vast and comprehensive intellect, 
and the death-compassing stroke of my unapproach- 
able arm !" I then went forth on 'my mission of de- 
struction, breathing revenge and blood from my nos- 
trils at every step. 

The Honest Jew. 

Just after crossing the Yankee lines, I encountered 
an individual who informed me that he was an Honest 
Jew. " Right glad am I to meet you, my noble 
iViend," I said : " for honest men are scarce in these 
unwholesome days. I trust you are an Israelite in 
whom there is no guile.'' 

" I ish dat," responded the Honest Jew ; " and vat I 
say, dat pe trute." 

"Then," I answered, "you are a good Confederate ; 
for Confederates alone are capable of speaking the 
truth." 

" You vait vun little pit," returned the guileless Is- 
raelite, " an' I show you I make seventeen hunder 
tollar in fifteen minutes !" 

" How r I asked. 

" I shut up Yankee's eye." 

The Honest Jew then beckoned me to follow him. 
Approaching the Yankee sentinel, he said : 



88 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

"I liabe tree liiincler tollar goods back yonder. I 
take 'em across that bayou I get two toiisan'. ]N'o\v 
you must shut your eye vile I goes py, an' I gives you 
fifty tollar !" 

" All riglit," replied the Yankee sentinel, " give me 
the $50 and I'll shut my eye while you pass." 

The Honest Jew paid the Yankee the sum specified, 
and the Jew went back after his goods. But I noticed, 
that the sentinel called the corporal of the guard and 
had some private conversation with him, after which 
the corporal disappeared. 

Soon the Jew came up with his goods, and the 
Yankee sentinel didn't see him at all when he passed ; 
but he hadn't got fifty yards before the corporal and 
four men dodged out from behind a tree and arrested 
him. Plis goods were seized and confiscated, and he 
was told that if he ever tried such a dodge again, he 
would be sent to Fort Jackson with a ball and chain 
to his leg. 

" Var's mine fifty tollar ?" said the Honest Jew, 
shaking his fist at the Yankee sentinel. 

" I have it," replied the base Yankee dog ; '' you 
gave it to me to shut my eyes while you passed, and I 
fulfilled my part of the bargain."^ 

I then resumed my journey to J^ew Orleans, accom- 
panied by the Israelite in whom there was no guile, 
and whose deep-heaving sighs and groans of agony 
over his loss, touched me with pity, and filled my mind 
with tenfold anger against the foul despotism of the 
United States. 

* A true incident. ED. 



THE HONEST JEW. 89 

"My guileless and honest friend," I said to him, 
" you are a victim of unmitigated villany and .iron op- 
pression. You would do good by supplying the Con- 
federacy and getting rich at the same time ; but the 
damnable and debased despotism of the United States 
steps in your way !" 

" Oh, I pe very boor — very boor, indeed ! " groaned 
the Israelite in whom there was no guile. 

"My boor friend ! " I exclaimed, clasping him to my 
bosom, " I will avenge thy manifold wrongs. I have 
dedicated myself to Mars, the death-scattering hero of 
bloody wars; and now I also dedicate myself to 
Hermes, the god of thieves, and the son of Jupiter 
and Maia ; he whose first act was to steal the cattle of 
Apollo. Henceforth, I am the champion of larceny, 
and I swear by the soul of the Confederacy, that I 
will not rest from toil and labor until I have stolen a 
horse!" 

" You gives him to me, eh ? " asked the Jew, his eyes 
lighting up with eager fire. 

" Yes," I replied, " I'll give him to thee, my wronged 
and outraged friend." 

~ "But tree horses only make me cood for mine 
coods." 

" Then three shalt thou have " I exclaimed. " Yes, 
I swear it by the honor of a Confederate Warrior, that 
I will steal three horses for this outraged Jew, and one 
for myself, before I consent to a cessation of hostilities, 
or return to the pursuits of philosophy in Madison- 
ville " 

The Honest Jew pressed me to his bosom as we 
parted in I^ew Orleans, and promised to wait at the 



90 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

Opeloiisas Depot, in Algiers, until I should send him 
the three horses. 



Successful Scheme of Finance. 

It was about this time that I put into practical op- 
eration a great scheme of finance that I had studied 
out in my secluded and meditative hours, in my dilap- 
idated hospitable abode at Madisonville, and I found 
that it worked to perfection. The principle is as 
follows: ISTever invite a man to drink, but always 
drink when you are asked. By the application of this 
simple rule, you get for your own use all the liquor 
you pay for, and also get a good deal which doesn't 
cost you any thing. 

I crossed tlie river on the Canal-street ferry-boat, 
with the' firm determination not to pay a cent for food, 
lodging, or transportation, during my travels. Since 
then I have passed through many scenes, which it will 
require a long letter to describe, and I hereby give 
notice to the public that my Twelfth Epistle will be 
devoted to a full and authentic account of my travels 
in the Louisiana Lowlands Low, and to a description 
of the many strange adventures I have encountered. 
Yours unremittingly, 

James B. Macpherson. 



BANKS's TECHE CAMPAIGN. 91 



CHAPTEE XIl. 

The Great Confederate Traveller describes pus Journey 
through the louisiana lowlands low. 

Note. — Algiers is the name of a small town opposite New Orleans. 
It contains tlie depot of the Opelousas railroad. Ferry accommoda- 
tions are miserable. At the time this letter was written, General 
Banks's brilliant campaign through the Teclie country Avas in prog- 
ress, and had already resulted in the destruction of the rebel army of 
Western Louisiana. Two thousand j)risoners had been captured, 
and a considerable number of them had been confined in the Belle-- 
viUe Iron Works in Algiers, which led Mr. Macpherson to suppose 

that the building was in possession of the Confederates. The 

rebel army which was so effectually dispersed or destroyed by the 
movement of General Banks, was in command of Gen. Richard Tay- 
lor, a son of " Old Zack," the hero and patriot, whose devotion to his 
country has rendered his name dear to every true American. As 
Gen. Banks's campai^ through the Teche country seems not to 
have been generally understood at the time, the author will briefly 
give what he supposes to have been the theory of the movement. 
" Why," it was asked, " should the United States forces march 
through a country, take possession of it, and forthwith abandon it, 
leaving the inhabitants who, expecting protection, had shown a love 
for the Union, to suffer the penalty of rebel vengeance ? This v/ould 
be a pertinent inquiry under ordinary circumstances, but the author 
believes a brief statement of facts will explain this matter to the sat- 
isfaction of every imjDartial reader. 

The great object which General Banks must have had in view, 
was the capture of Port Hudson and the opening of the Mississippi 
river. But Port Hudson v/as a hundred and fifty miles above New 
Orleans, and in order to invest it successfully, the General required 
every soldier in the department. Indeed, with every soldier, his force 
was seemingly inadequate to the undertaking. The rebel garrison 
of Port Hudson, at the time of its investment, in May, 1863, number- 
ed seven thousand effective men, and at no time during the siege did 
Gen. Banks command more than ten thousand effective men. His 
hues were necessarily much longer than those of the enemy, and the 
advantages were aU with the garrison, except in the matter of sup- 



92 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

plies. In order to besiege Port Hudson, tlien, Avitli any prospect of 
success, it was necessary that lie should take every available man 
that could be spared. But Taylor, Monton, and Sibley were in 
Western Louisiana with a large force of rebels, and if he moved his 
entire army to Port Hudson, he left his rear and New Orleans itself 
exposed to the enemy. As he had not a sufficient force to watch the 
enemy in Western Louisiana and to invest Port Hudson at the same 
time, it was necessary to destroy the rebel army of Western Louisiana 
before Port Hudson could be invested. And this work was most 
successfully accomplished. The Army of the Gulf accomplished a 
march of three hundred miles in twenty days, fighting four battles 
and winning as many victories. The first battle was at Camp Bis 
land, christened after a planter by that name, whose plantation, now 
a picture of ruin and desolation, is situated on the Teclie, between 
Berwick City and the village of Franklin. The rebel army of West 
ern Louisiana was completely broken up and destroyed by the cam- 
paign ; and having accomplished this indispensable preliminary 
step, Gen. Banks at once moved his whole force against Port Hudson, 
Such, the author believes, was the theory of the Teche campaign — a 
campaign which, in rapidity of movement, in general management 
and important results, has not been surpassed in the history of this 
war, if we take into account the number of men engaged. 

Brashear City (why will people call such insignificant places cities ?) 
is situated on Berwick Bay, near the confluence of the Teche and 
Atchafalaya rivers. It was the base of supplies in the Teche cam 
paign, and tlie more recent movement by which the rebel army was 
drawn out of Texas, opening the way for the success of the expedi 
tion to the Rio Grande. The place was recaptured by the rebels in 
June, I860, almost without resistance by our forces ; and large quan 
titles of stores, ammunition, and a considerable number of prisoners, 
fell into the hands of the enemy. After the fall of Port Hudson, how 
ever, the rebels hastily evacuated the place, and just in time to escape 
capture. It is about ninety miles from New Orleans to the west- 
ward, and the Opelousas Railroad has its present termini at Algiers 
and Brashear City. The country between the two places is very low, 
and wide forests are seen on either hand. There are plenty of alliga- 
tors to be seen sunning themselves, and some are of enormous size; 
although it requires the Confederate arithmetic to make them five 
hundred feet long, as has been done by Mr. Macpherson. The au- 
thor made the journey described in the following letter {i. e. as far as 
Brashear City), in the latter part of April, for the first time; and his 
experience at the Brashear City Hotel can only be appreciated by 

those who have visited " the Great Temple of Wisdom.' He has 

connected the philosophy of Macpherson with the ancient mythology. 



FAREWELL TO THE CKESCENT CITY. 93 

because the credulity, mendacity, passions, and habits of the secession- 
ists more properly belong to the religion of a pagan country than to 
a land and an age of civilisation. Gov. Moore, the last Chief Magis- 
trate elected by the people of Louisiana, and his itinerant Legisla- 
ture still claiming to exercise executive and legislative functions, 
were frightened by the " Yankee" army, or the expectation of its ap- 
proach, and " skedaddled" to some indefinite point, in or beyond the 
extreme western portion of Louisiana. Moore still claims to be gov- 
ernor of Louisiana. His power is about equal to that of Sancho 
Panza, who, like Moore, also gloried in the title of " Governor." 

Madisonville, La., 

May 2, 1863. 

Sir : — As Ulysses, the much planning warrior of the 
Greeks, wandered the victim of cruel Fate, searching 
vainly for his home, whence h*e sighed to return vic- 
torious from the siege of Troy, even so was I driven 
from the paths of philosophy, and from my dilapidated 
hospitable abode, by the articulate-speaking voice of 
Fate, which sent me forth the great Confederate Trav- 
eller in the Louisiana Lowlands Low. 

Taking passage on one of those magnificent steamers 
belonging to the Canal street Ferry, that are fitted up 
on a scale of magnificence surpassing the dreams of 
Fairy Land, or the splendor and glory which surround 
the President of the Confederacy in his stately and 
oriental i3alace at Richmond, I stood upon the lofty 
deck and thus poured out my soul to the people of J^ew 
Orleans : " Farewell," I cried in tearful tones, " fair 
Crescent City, gazing upon the great old Father of 
Waters ! thee I leave behind. But when I return, I 
shall come with banner, brand, and bow, leading the 
victorious and unconquerable legions of Gen. R. Taylor, 
and exterminating the vile Yankee foe, wdiose iron foot 
rests upon the bosom of the Confederacy, with terrible 
weight, as the great Polyphemus, the one-eyed Giant, 



91- THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

thirsting for liiiinan life, had plucked a ^YOody moun- 
tain from its base and placed it on my head !" I then 
shouted three times, and committed assault and battery 
on a newsboy who offered me The Eea. 

Arriving at Algiers, a magnificent city opposite 
]^ew Orleans, I discovered that the Belleville Iron 
Works had fallen into the possession of the Confederacy, 
and that it contained a strong garrison of Graybacks, 
numbering several hundred. "Blessed be Jupiter," I 
lexclaimed, " the Father of gods and men, and the 
overshadowing ruler of cloudy Olympus ! — for now I 
perceive that the invader of the Lowlands Low has 
been driven back with terrific slaughter !" I then sent 
a dispatch to the President of the Confederacy in 
Hichmond, announcing that General Banks had been de- 
feated and completely wiped out ; that General R. Taylor 
had cajjtured eighteen hundred thousand Yankee pris- 
oners, and that the head of his invincible column was 
then in the Belleville L*on "Works of Algiers, protected 
and watched over by a strong line of Yankee sentinels. 

I then went to' the Yankee Raih"oad Depot, and de- 
manded a free pass to Brashear City. 

" By what authority," inquired the Yankee, " do you 
make that demand ?" 

" By the authority of the Southern Confederacy," I 
replied, " and in virtue of my vow to Mars, the death- 
scattering hero of bloody wars, that I will neither wash 
my face nor drink water until I have exterminated 
every damned Yankee in Louisiana, Mississij^pi, and 
the First Congressional District of Texas !" 

" You must be Macpherson," replied the Yankee. 

" Well and truly hast thou spoken," I answered him ; 



THK CONFEDERATE RELIGION. 95 

" I AM Macpherson, the great Confederate traveller, 
whose Massive Intellect will produce a volume of 
Travels more entertaining, though less truthful, than 
the tales of the Arabian Nights." 

" If that won't pass you over this road," answered 
the Yankee, '' I don't know what will." He tlien gave 
me a dead-head ticket and introduced me to another 
chap, who at once made me drink a bottle of cham- 
pagne, after which I started off on my journey. 

" Xow, indeed," I exclaimed, " is the will of Jupiter 
made manifest, and heaven sends auspicious omens ; 
for I ride at the expense of the United States, and am 
drunk to start with, without cost — the indispensable 
condition of a Confederate Traveller and Warrior.'^ 

" Why is it," asked a chap in the cars, " that you 
still adhere to the religion of the Greeks and Romans, 
believe in omens, and offer orisons to the divinities of 
Olympus, w4iose worship has been overthrown by the 
light of •Christianity ?" 

" Untaught Ignoramus !" I ansAvered ; " benighted 
heathen of Yankee darkness ! if thy dull brain is ca- 
pable of comprehending the Confederate principles, I 
will explain them to you. The Confederate religion is 
a conglomeration of the faith of Moses and the intel- 
lectual fables of Olympus, which have been handed 
down to us by the greatest poets of the earth. As the 
Jews believe they are the chosen people, and a cussed 
sight better than anybody else, so do the Confederates 
believe that they are the salt of the earth — a position 
fully sustained by the large saline deposits near J^ew 
Iberia. So far, then, our faith is founded on Moses 
and the Israelites generally ; but the rest of it corre- 



96 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

spends pretty faithfully witn the pagan religion, except 
that ours surpasses the pagan in the magnificent splen- 
dor of its fables. Let me illustrate this point to your 
ignorance-besotted mind. Ancient Troy was a village 
about half the size of Algiers, and the siege of the 
place was a series of fist-encounters between Ajax, 
Heenan, Priam, and other prize-fighters. But Homer 
has converted his pugilists into demigods, and has in- 
troduced nearly all the gods of heaven, earth, and hell 
as interested spectators, or active co-operationists. For 
all this there was a slight foundation in truth ; and the 
Confederate Religion difi*ers from and surpasses the 
ancient, in the fact that its biggest stories and achieve- 
ments have no foundation in fact whatever!" I then 
presented him with a copy of Macpherson's Confed- 
erate Arithmetic, and told him that if his muddy and 
debased brain could comprehend it, he was smarter 
than I was. 

The people along the road turned out by millions to 
see me, as the train passed on through the Lowlands 
Low, all giving a hundred and fifty cheers and fifty 
tigers, in honor of the Plato of the Confederacy and 
the Yenus of Madisonville, whose Mammoth Brain 
first brought together in a condensed and intelligible 
form the famous religion and philosophy of the !N^ew 
Nation, which are destined to sweep every other from 
the earth, from Greenland's Icy Mountains to Lidia's 
Coral Strand. 

The car in which I was seated was soon filled with 
bouquets, hurled at me through the window, formed 
of red, white, and red, indicative of the Confederate 
flag, and in imitation of those which the Confederates 



MACPHEESON SHOOTS AN ALLIGATOE. 97 

of New Orleans have been accustomed to throw at the 
])hiyers, since the damnable despotism of IT. S. will 
n'ot permit them to tnrow out-and-out secession flags. 
At last, the accumulated weight of bouquets and of 
my Ponderous Intellect proved too much for the labor- 
ing Engine, and it gave out, when we were kept wait- 
ing tor three hours, surrounded by impenetrable woods 
and dirty water, moccasin snakes and deep lagoons, 
overhung by weeping cypress-trees, and echoing for- 
ever with the melodious notes of bull-frogs and alli- 
gators. 

Then it was that I walked into the gloomy forest, 
and recalled to my mind the adventure of Balboa, who 
discovered the Pacific Ocean, and wading into it up to 
his waist, stretched forth his sword and took possession 
of that important stream in the name of his king. 
Therefore I waded into a mud-hole up to the top of my 
breeches, and stretching forth my brawny arm, took 
possession of it in the name of the Southern Confed- 
eracy! 

Mac^herson^ s Interview with an Alligator five hundred 
feet long. 

As I w^as wallowing back, I met an alligator five 
hundred feet long by Confederate measurement, which 
is ecpial to ten feet in Yankee mathematics. I imme- 
diately drew my Jefi'. Davis revolver, a terrible brass- 
mounted weapon, presented to me by the ladies of 
Doctor Palmer's congregation, and sHot the animal, ex- 
pecting to see him die at my feet. He paid no attention 
to it, but rolled over in the dirt' and yawned, as though 
nothing had happened. Then it was that my mind 

5 



98 THE MACPHEKSON LETTEKS. 

was filled with admiration and love for the noble ani- 
mal, to whom I delivered the following able address : 
" Majestic Confederate mudsill !— aboriginal inhab- 
itant of the Louisiana Lowlands Low ! — thou art im- 
pregnable as the defenses of Camp Bisland, and 
impervious to water and mud alike. Would to heaven 
that, deployed as skirmishers in R. Taylor's army, you 
might wade in Yankee blood, even as now you wallow 
in mud, the natural ally of the Southern Confederacy !" 

Arri/val at Tigerville. 

The engine having been repaired, it gave a Confed- 
erate snort, and with lightning in its eye and steel in 
its sinews, drew us to Tigerville, just as the sombre 
mantle of all-enshrouding night settled over the earth. 
The conductor shouted "Tigerville," and I looked out, 
expecting to see ^a city equal to Madisonville, but 
could discover nothing but a wide and lonely forest, in 
which the deep-laid shadows seemed to conceal a thou- 
sand phantom forms. But as the train moved on 
again, I got a sight at Tigerville, which apparently 
consisted of a grocery store and a brass kettle ; and I 
found that by a miraculous junction of nature and art, 
while the engine was in the centre of the city, the rear 
car, in which I was seated, was in the midst of prime- 
val forests, stretching away for miles on either hand. 

At last we reached Brashear City, a town larger 
than New Orleans, if you include the woods. A pe- 
culiarity of this city is, that it has no streets. 



BEASHEAE CITY HOTEL. 



The great Tenvple of Wisdom at Brashear City. 

Immediately I proceeded to the Brashear City 
Hotel, which I soon discovered was a vast temple of 
wisdom and economy. It so strongly resembles my 
dilapidated hospitable abode in Madisonville, that I 
burst into tears as the sweet image of that home arose 
before me with the Idiotic Boy, now the exponent of 
Confederate Philosophy, and of my spouse, who sighs 
for the return of her roving protector, even as Penelope 
sighed for the return of Ulysses ; but I hope she has 
fewer suitors than the excellent Greek lady alluded to. 

Calling for supper, I was told that none could be 
had ; as it was past the usual hour, and the chief cook 
had gone to bed. Then was I filled with admiration 
at the Arcadian simplicity of life in those remote re- 
gions, where the repose of a cook begins at nine o'clock 
in the evening, and is guarded by the changeless law 
of custom. Gladly, therefore, did I go to my room, 
suj^perless. 

The -apartment in which I was placed, aud from 
which a Yankee was expelled to make room for me, 
filled me with love and admiration beyond the power 
of language to describe. There was such an absence 
of all luxuries, or even necessaries of life, that I at once 
saw that the architect and proprietor of the establish- 
ment was a philosopher and a political economist. 
The rude walls were constructed of rough Confederate 
boards, undefiled by the carpenter's plane, the luxu- 
rious covering of the paper manufactory, or the un- 
necessary embellishment of the white-washer's brush. 



100 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

"Thanks to Jnpiter!*' I exclaimed, 'Hlie wall-paper 
which might otherwise have been wasted upon these 
walls, can now be used for publishing secession jour- 
nals." I then got into bed, and pulled down the mus- 
quito-net. I discovered that the mattress was made 
of cane-stalks, the products of my native Louisiana, 
with an immense one in the centre, very convenient to 
hang upon to keej) one's self in bed. The only unne- 
cessary luxury I observed consisted of two table-cloths 
on the bed in place of sheets ; and I got up early in 
the morning, thinking they might be needed for use 
on the table. I had not been in bed a great while be- 
fore the umsquitoes, that were buzzing by millions 
around the net, commenced pouring through in close 
cohimn by battalions ; while an immense force was held 
back as a reserve to fill up the ranks shattered by the 
death-scattering blows of my manly arm. Kow it was 
that a great physical rencounter commenced, surpassing 
in bloody destruction the battle of Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip. I slaughtered them without mercy ; but I 
found that the wide forests surrounding the city were 
filled with dauntless legions ; and however many 
millions I might destroy, it was probable that I should 
be compelled at last to surrender to overpowering 
numbers. Therefore, I thought I would try to stop up 
some of the holes in the musquito-net. I stuck my 
hat into one of them, my boots into two others, my 
breeches into another, my Confederate coat and vest 
into another, and finally, the washstand and pitcher 
into the biggest one. But these precautions scarcely 
checked the overpowering advance of the hostile 
armies, and I went to tying up the holes in knots, 



mTEHVIEW WITH GOV. MOOEE. 101 

until I had tied twenty-five hundred by the Confeder- 
ate arithmetic, which is fifty in Yankee mathematics ; 
but all to ii6 avail. I at last collected the carcasses of 
the slain, and piled them up around me ; after Avhich I. 
was enabled to enjoy a night of strength-nourishing 
repose. 

Arising in the morning, I discovered that there was 
no soap in the room, which I regarded as a high per- 
sonal compliment to my cleanliness ; it was as much 
as an admission on the part of the landlord, that I was 
clean enough ah-eady. Neither was there any looking- 
glass; and I knew at once that the landlord did not 
mean to encourage the sentiments of worldly pride, 
engendered in men and women when they survey their 
persons in a glass. 

I immediately took passage for Opelousas, whence I 
walked to Shreveport to find Governor Moore and the 
Legislature, the custodians of the civil rights of Louisi- 
ana, and the guardians of the State treasury. 

Interview with Governor Moore, 

I inquired diligently for them, but the inhabitants 
reported that they had left some time previous, at 
double-quick, carrying the treasury and archives in a 
one-horse cart. I followed on and reached the Red 
River ; and there I discovered Governor Moore weeping 
on a stump, in the depths of a dismal forest, surround- 
ed by insects and wild beasts. Seeing me, he fell upon 
my neck and cried like a child. " Guardian of law 
and order!" I exclaimed ; '' protector of States' rights 
and the treasury, dauntless commander-in-chief of the 



102 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

State militia ! tliee do I embrace in fraternal and un- 
djing Confederate affection. Tell me, I pray thee, the 
cause of thine overwhelming grief." 

" Macpherson !" he said, in tearful tones ; " look 
here on this picture, and then on this. When I took 
charge of the Legislature, it sat in the fine State-house 
at Baton Kouge, and I was the proud potentate of the 
great sugar-planting State, while the treasury was 
overflowing with funds. But where am I now ?" 

" In a swamp, on a stump !" I replied. 

" Where is the treasury ?" he continued. 

" That's what I'm after," I answered. 

" Well, thou shalt see it," lie replied ; wdiereupon he 
led me to the borders of a mud-hole, and drawing aside 
the thick overhanging foliage, displayed to my vision 
a one-horse cart attached to a mule, and both stuck in 
the mud. "To this complexion hath it come at last 1" 
he groaned ; " for you see before you the archives and 
the treasury of the State !" 

I immediately overhauled the contents, and discov- 
ered the Act of Secession, of January 26, 1S61 ; a copy 
of Macpherson's Confederate Arithmetic, by which he 
had tried to multiply by 50, and so fill the treasury ; 
and an order conscripting all able-bodied niggers into 
the Confederate ranks as soldiers. " Those," said the 
Itinerant Moore, " are the State archives. Look no^v 
at the treasury." I looked, and discovered a five-cent 
shinplaster on the bank of West Baton Eouge, a blue 
car-ticket, and a receipt for two barrels of whisky. 
" That," said the weeping Moore, "is what remains of 
the wealth of Louisiana, after passing through the fiery 
ordeal of civil war, and the more trying ordeal of my 



MACPHEESON IN THE LEGISLATURE. 103 

policy. The mule represents the motive power of the 
Confederacy, and the whole concern is now stuck in 
the mud." 

" But the glory of the New Nation still remains," I 
answered him. " Jeff. Davis still sits enthroned in 
oriental magnificence in Richmond, and the Idiotic 
Boy is monarch of Confederate Philosophy. Let us 
arise and exterminate the Yankee race !" 

We arose, and taking me to the recesses of an im- 
mense hollow tree, I discovered the Legislature in ses- 
sion. It consisted of three members, all dead drunk. 
"Join us," said the governor; and I joined. We 
soon became happy in the consciousness that we might 
soon recover the whole territory of the United States. 
I was accordingly elected a member of the Legislature, 
and we forthwith passed an act declaring the power of 
the Yankees at an end, and seizing the whole conti- 
nent of America, in the name of the Southern Con- 
federacy, the said act to take effect immediately. 
'' Thanks to Jupiter I" I exclaimed ; " the war is now 
at an end ; the North is subdued, and the flag of the 
New Nation floats in triumph over every inch of ground 
on the vast continent." We then got blind drunk, 
from which I was aroused by the recollection that a 
week before I had made a vow of larceny, and had 
promised to steal three horses for the Honest Jew, who 
had promised to wait in Algiers until I should send 
him the specified number of animals. I accordingly 
started off at double-quick, and returned to the Yankee 
headquarters at Opelousas. 



10 J: TilK MACPHEESON LETTERS. 



The Vow of LarGGiiy f^ilfilled. 

I was there advised tliat the Late battle-field of Camp 
Bisland afforded great facilities for. stealing horses, and 
thither I went. Looking around, I discovered not less 
than sixty animals, and I immediately telegraphed to 
the Honest Jew, that if he would come up there, I 
would give him thirty horses instead of three. He 
went and met me with a glowing face on that field of 
bloody encounter, in which R. Taylor's forces drove 
the Yankees thirteen hundred miles in thirteen hours, 
averaging a hundred miles to the hour. He immedi- 
ately embraced me. 

"You pe vun shentlemans," said he; "I bays your 
pills at the hotel." 

" All right," I answered him ; " there are sixty 
horses up there; you shall have thirty; take your 
pick." 

He started off on the run, but soon returned with 
fire and indignation in his eyes. 

"You pe vun tam fillain !" he exclaimed. 

" What's the matter, sweet one !" I asked, in a tone 
of tenderness. 

" You tam fillain ! the horses pe every vun tead !" 

" Dead !" I exclaimed, " and so young — the oldest 
not being quite twenty ! But weep not, my Honest 
Jew ; they died in the sacred cause of the Southern 
Confederacy. Dules et decormn est pro patria mori. 
You never tried it, poor Jew, and you never will. 
But, I tell thee, I did not promise that the horses 
sliould be alive; and no^v, O Hermes! god of thieves, 



GREAT CONFEDEEATE PARSON. 105 

I have fulfilled my vow of blood and larceny !" I 
then kissed the Honest Jew and returned to New Or- 
leans, having been invited to preach in a secession 
church on Sunday, April 26t]i, in consequence of my 
able exposition of the Confederate Religion to the 
Yankee Ignoramus, and in view of the fact that the 
proclamation of tliat bloody despot, Abraham Lincoln, 
had been ordered to be read in the churches on that 
day. The prevailing belief among the Confederates 
was, til at I was the only Confederate parson smart 
enough to do the thing up properly, and outwit the 
dull Yankee brain. Therefore did I haste, with wings 
as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, to as- 
sume the robes of divinity. In my next letter, I shall 
appear as tlie Great Confederate Parson, reading the 
Proclamation, and will reproduce the sermon I deliver- 
ed on that occasion. 

My task for this week is done. I travelled through 
tlie Louisiana Lowlands Low, with a rapidity that 
would do credit to an engine on the Opelousas road. 
I am the greatest traveller in the Confederacy, and my 
only wonder is that my heart does not swell witli pride 
and egotism when I think of my accomplishments. 
But with all my Massive Intellect and power in the 
Confederacy, I am not egotistic in any degree beyond 
what is warranted in the Confederate Code of Egotism. 
Yours, modestly, 

James B. Macpheeson. 

5* 



106 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Macpherson appears as a Clergyman, and expounds the 
Confederate Gospel. — His encounters the Weeping 
Orphan, and unkxpectedly finds a Large Family on 
HIS HANDS. — He preaches from the Text: "Blow ye!" 
etc., etc. 

Note. — President Lincoln issued a proclamation, setting apart tlie 
80th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and 
prayer. General James Bowen, Provost Marshal General of Louisiana, 
issued a circular, in which he "requested" (that was the word used) 
all the clergymen officiating in the chm'ches of New Orleans, Jeffer- 
son, Carrolton, and Algiers, to read the proclamation of the President 
to their congregations, on Sunday, the 26th of April — the Sunday pre- 
ceding the day designated by the President. Some of the clergymen 
paid no attention to this request. Others read it, and the reading 
was made the occasion for very noisy and disgraceful demonstrations 
on the part of the secessionists in the congregation. The women 
took the lead in the sacrilegious proceedings. The moment the read- 
ing commenced, they left the churches in a very noisy and offensive 
manner, shuffling their feet, upsetting stools, and otherwise disturb- 
ing the peace and good order of the sanctuary. Some of the clergy- 
men, anxious to soothe the nerves of their secession hearers, an- 
nounced that they Avould read the Proclamation because they had 
been ordered to read it — an assertion as false as it was cowardly, 
since, as has been stated already, they were only requested to read it. 
One of the clergy who neglected to read it at all was Father Joubert, 
of St. Augustinss church, who, the author has been told, refused to 
administer the sacrament to colored men wdio had enlisted in the 
army ; thus making it an offense punishable with eternal damnation 
for a negro to fight for the Union !. Father Lemaitre, of the St. Rose 
de Lima, read the proclamation, and preached an out-and-out Union 
sermon to an immense congregation. He was soon after excommu- 
nicated by Archbishop Odin ; but the author is pleased to learn that 
lie paid no attention to his sentence, refused to be damned in all his 
parts for the sin of being a Union man, and still continues to exer- 
cise his ecclesiastical office. One clergyman, whose congregation un- 



DISPATCH FROM JEFF. DAVIS. 107 

derstoocl only tlie Frencli language, read the proclamation in English ; 
which woidd seem to warrant Macpherson in reading it in the 
JEit\iio\)ic. 

Madisonville, La., 

May 9, 1863. ■ 

Sir : — I am greater than Hercules, the son of Jupi- 
ter, for he performed but twelve labors of immortal 
distinction ; but I, having performed twelve, now enter 
upon my thirteentli with my Mammoth Brain un- 
dimmed, and the fires of genius glowing more brightly 
than when I began. 

Keturning from my immortal travels through the 
Louisiana Lowlands Low, I had scarcely set foot upon 
the Levee at New Orleans, when a courier, mounted 
on a Confederate mule, came riding up with the rapid- 
ity of lightning. " I am," he said, '' the bearer of im- 
portant dispatches from your Idiotic Boy, the Great 
exponent of Confederate Philosophy in Madisonville, 
since your departure from your dilapidated hospitable 
abode." 

I opened the dispatches with a trembling hand, and 
was startled at the vast importance of the matter 
therein contained. Jeff. Davis, whose mud image 
stands uj^on my shelf in Madisonville, and which I 
always approach with uncovered head, had telegraphed 
to the Idiotic Boy as follows : 



Jeff. Davis^s Dispatch, 

The Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln appointing 
a day of national humiliation and prayer, must not be 
read in the churches of I^ew Orleans ; or, if read, it 
must be received with hisses, howls, and Confederate 



lOS Tip: IklACPHEKSON LETTEKS. 

suorts. Your father, James B. Macpherson, is charged 
with the executiou of this order. 

I am, my dear Idiot, 

Your faithful imitator, 
Jeff. Davis, 

President of the 

American Continent. 

I 

"Thanks to Jupiter!" I exclaimed, "the son and 
conqueror of Saturn, whose thunders resound from 
Olympus like the roar of a Confederate shot-gun ; it is 
my pleasant duty and province to stay the tide of 
Yankee sacrilege, and save from defilement the great 
Confederate Temple of Holiness ! " I then looked at 
the town-clock to see what time it was, and found 
that it was precisely six p. m. 

As I was gazing upon the clock, whose massive 
liands mark the rapid departure of the fieet-footed 
hours, I was tapped upon the shoulder by a man of 
giant frame. His form towered on high more lofty 
than that of the bloody despot Abraham Lincoln, 
whose throne at Washington is built of human skulls, 
and whose daily food is a fricasseed Southerner. His 
large and glowing face was red as a Confederate army 
shoe, and his threadbare gray garments showed me 
plainly that he belonged to the glorious JS^ew ^NTation. 
He gazed upon me with a look of melting tenderness 
with those fiery eyes, beaming in their sunken sockets 
like the orbs of night, or the all-warming sun in his 
meridian glory, and falling at my knees, he burst into 
a flood of tears. 

" I am a Weeping Orphan ! " he said : " I am six 



THE WEEPING OrwPIIAN". " 109 

foet and five inclies high, and fortj-nine years of age. 
AVeight, two hnndred and eighty pounds." 

'' Unhaj^py youth ! " I excLaimed : " thine enormous 
height entitles thee to the sympathy of a Confederate 
philosopher, even if thou, tender bud and sweet honey- 
suckle of affliction, hadst not been cast upon the cold 
charities of the w(jrld at a tender age." 

" How do you make that out ?" asked a Yankee, in 
a gruff voice, interrupting my train of sublime medita- 
tion ; " up JsTorth we call a man of forty-nine years 
well advanced in life!" 

"And so he is," I answered^ "in those unhappy realms 
of Yankeedom ; but in the celestial Confederacy a man 
does not arrive at the years 'of discretion until he is 
fifty-one." I then fell upon the breast of the Weeping 
Orphan, and told him that I would share with him my 
last crust, and invited him to my quarters at the St. 
Louis Hotel, which invitation he accepted with flow- 
ing tears of gratitude. 

MaGj)herson finds himself with a large family on his 
hands. 

Scalrcely had we taken four drinks, before the Or- 
phan burst into a flood of such violent tears that I 
feared the effect upon his tender constitution. " Oh ! " 
he cried, " what will become of those sweet buds of 
affection, my wailing infants, who groan for bread ; 
and my tender spouse, whose grief surpasses my own ?" 

"Bring them hither," I exclaimed ; "I will protect 
them from the cold blasts of the world, and fill their 
mouths with bread and jerked beef." 



110 THE MACPHERSON LETTEKS. 

" Generous stronger !" exclaimed tlie Orphan ; " I 
accept the proffered hosj^italities of your house." He 
then brought in his family, which consisted of a wife 
and thirteen children, and all about the same size. 
" These are the cause of my anxiety,'' he exclaimed, 
" and for these I weep almost as much as for my own 
bereaved lot, cast as I am, at a tender age, upon my 
own resources." 

'' I will keep this charge ! " I answered, " and thou 
slialt know that none ever in vain appealed to the 
charity of the Plato of the Confederacy." I then 
ordered supper for the crowd, and found that it would 
cost me $85 per day to feed my unhappy guests. 

Sunday morning, April 20, 1863, daAvned upon the 
world with resplendent glory. The all-beholding sun 
shone from a cloudless sky, and the birds sang sweetly 
around the lofty chimneys of the St. Louis Hotel, 
where I might liave been seen arm-in-arm with the 
Weeping Orphan, followed by his wife and thirteen 
infants, wending our way towards the Great Confed- 
erate Temple of Holiness in Camp-street. The people, 
attracted by the understanding that I was to exj^ound 
the Confederate religion, and read Abraham Lincoln's 
Proclamation in a Confederate manner, turned out in 
overpowering numbers. At least three hundred thou- 
sand registered enemies were present, and as many 
more went away, unable to gain admittance. 

I^ot having a pastoral robe I pulled off my coat, 
and 'mounted the pulpit in my shirt sleeves, where I 
was received with loud applause. The women waved 
their handkerchiefs and cried, "God bless you!" I 
was always popular with the women of New Orleans, 



CONFEDERATE SAINTS. Ill 

and the reason of it is that I so profusely and ably 
represent their thoughts, feelings, and wishes. I am 
endowed with the extraordinary gift of nature, which 
enables me to read the innermost emotions and thoughts 
of the human mind. I comprehend to its fullest extent 
that deep, and intense, and passionate, and divine super- 
human hatred, which the true ladies of 'New Orleans 
cherish in their glowing bosoms for the whole Yankee 
race — a hatred as deep as the twelfth circle of Dante's 
Inferno, and as high as the flag-staff of the St. Charles 
Hotel before it was cut down. Hate the Yankees? 
Yes ! I hate thirst, when there is no Confederate rum 
within a hundred miles of me ! I had rather be a door- 
keeper in a Confederate hog-pen than to play a piano 
in the parlor of a Yankee. Therefore it is that I am 
popular with the true ladies of New Orleans; and there- 
fore it is, that the moment I stepped into the pulpit I 
was loaded down with bouquets and sympathy. 

The audience began to cry out, " Macpherson ! Mac- 
pherson !" I was about to respond, when, much to 
my astonishment and indignation, the Weeping Orphan 
dodged in ahead of me, and with streaming eyes in- 
formed the people of his unhappy lot in life. It 
occurred to me that something might be made out of 
the affair : I proposed that a collection should be 
taken up for the weeping object of sympathy before 
me. Three thousand dollars were collected, which I 
put in my own pocket, and then proceeded "with the 
exercises. 

"Confederate saints," I said, "and believers in the 
only true faith, we shall begin this performance by 
singing a beautiful hymn, composed by myself, and 



112 THE MACPHEKSOI^ LETTERS. 

touchiiiglj appropriate to tlie mournful occasion on 
which we meet." 

YANKEES. 

Hymn in L. M., by Eev. James B. Macpherson, of Madisonville, Poet 
Laureate, Author, Philosopher, Warrior, and Traveller. 

1. 
Yankees have liorns and lioofs and tails, 

The soil is blighted where they tread. 
And be they women, be they males, 

I wish the Yankee race was dead. 



Confederate vengeance, like a blow 

From the avenging hand of Fate, 
Shall lay all the damned Yankees low 

In our brave Louisiana State. 

I requested the choir to omit the first and second 
stanzas of the above beautiful hymn, which they did. 
Tlie singing concluded, I proceeded to deliver itly great 
discourse. 

Macphersooi''s Sermon. 

" Confederate saints and ladies," I said, " my text 
this morning may be found somewhere, if any of you 
will take the trouble to look for it ; but a Confederate 
philosopher is necessarily so much engaged in rumma- 
ghig over the Classical Dictionaries and hunting up 
Olympian fables with which to maintain the cause of the 
Confederacy, that I have not had time to ascertain the 
exact place where it may be found. The words are 
these : 

" ' Blow Ye !' 

" In the text, as it stands in the Book, I think there 



113 

is sometluDg said about a trumpet ; but it is a beauti- 
ful and sublime feature of the Confederate religion, 
that you can strike out any part that don't please you, 
and add any thing you'd like to see there. I have 
accordingly struck out from the text the words, ' the 
trumpet,' and this gives us a splendid expression of the 
basis of the whole Confederate establishment, and reads 
simply : ' Blow Ye !' I cannot imagine how two words 
could possibly be found which more fittingly express 
the duty of every Confederate. I have searched the 
annals of by-gone ages ; I have explored every tongue, 
living and dead ; I have sought in the hieroglyphics of 
Egypt, the euphonious language of the Greeks, the 
sublime speech of the Romans, and the fiery words of 
the Gauls; but nowhere have I found two words so 
worthy of the obedience of every one in the Confed- 
eracy, as those I have selected for my text on this 
occasion ; and therefore I cry with a loud voice : 
Blow Te! 

" I have endeavored to live up to this great funda- 
mental principle of the Confederacy, and in my life to 
give a touching and noisy example of the faith. I am 
the great Confederate Blower, and the reason of my 
fame among men is, that I blow in a more faithful 
manner than the general run of Confederates, although 
the average of the Confederate race is but very little 
behind me. To the Confederates of New Orleans I 
give the deserved and proud distinction of Blowing in a 
manner perfectly satisfactory to our King, Jeff. Davis, 
President of the American Continent. To you, fair 
ladies, whose beauty is unsurpassed by Hebe herself, I 
award the meed of supreme merit next to myself, in 



114 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

• 

living up to this great fundamental principle of Con- 
federate faith. I defy any man with a spark of com- 
mon humanity in his breast, or the faintest gleam of com- 
mon sense in his muddy and idiotic brain, to mingle 
with the Confederates of New Orleans, whether in 
public or social life, and say that they do not faithfully 
follow the divine commandment of this text. Yes, 
brother saints of both sexes, the Blowing which has 
been done in your city, vindicates you forever against 
the foul suspicion that you meant wdiat you said when 
you took the oath of allegiance to the United States. 
Continue in this grand career, and you shall win im- 
mortal honor. As for mj^self, whether in sickness or 
in health, in victory or death, in carnage and slaughter, 
or in peace and innocence, I will Blow and Blow for- 
evermore. Yea, from the table of my memory I'll 
wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws and books, 
all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation 
copied there ; and this commandment all alone shall 
live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed 
with baser matter !" I then placed my hands inge- 
niously over my mouth, and blew so fiercely that it 
frightened the thirteen infants of the Weeping Orphan, 
and they cried in concert with me, making a most 
beautiful illustration of Confederate theology. 

At this stage of the proceedings, a delegation entered 
from Algiers, leading a small live alligator by a red 
string, which he presented to me in behalf of the 
Yankee Railroad men at the Algiers Depot. The head 
man informed me that this beautiful animal was cap- 
tured in the Louisiana Lowlands Low, and that the 
captors presented him to me as a token of regard for 



115 

the noble animal ; and also that they wished to know 
his dimensions by Confederate measnrement. I found 
that according to the rules of Confederate Arithmetic, 
he was seventy -five feet long, which is equal to eigh- 
teen inches by Yankee measurement. And liere allow 
me to say, that the Confederate Arithmetic is 23erfectly 
simple, and if the public will pay proper attention to 
its rules, they can learn to ci^Dlier as well as I can, and 
I shall not then be bothered by people coming to have 
me do their sums for them. Multiply every Yaids;ee 
figure by fifty, and you get the Confederate total. The 
delegation then departed, and I resumed my discourse, 
having sent the animal under an escort of Stuart's 
cavalry, to my dilapidated hospital)le abode. 

" Confederate Saints !" I said, ^' I have now a most 
loathsome and unholy duty to perform. I have been 
ordered by the Provost Marshal General, under the 
penalty of death, to read in your hearing a loathsome 
and unholy proclamation by that most foul and un- 
natural despot, Abraham Lincoln, a tyrant more base 
than Caligula or the princes of Central Africa. The 
proclamation fixes next Thursday as a day of national 
humiliation, fasting, and prayer, and I had rather give 
a thousand dollars than to read it in my temple of 
Confederate Holiness, provided I was allowed to take 
up another collection. But my life is of great value 
to the Confederacy, and the fundamental faith of the 
New Nation is, that every man shall look out for his 
own neck. Rather than have my able brain separated 
from the gigantic frame on which it now stands, I will 
read this most hateful proclamation, and I hope the 
arrangements will prove eftective !" 



116 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

I tlien commenced reading the proclamation in the 
Ethiopian tongue, and, simultaneously with the pro- 
nunciation of the first word, the whole audience gave 
the Confederate snort, while a nigger fiddler struck up 
the R. Taylor Gallopade^ and forty others danced a 
grand hoe-down in the gallery. The "Weeping Orphan 
pinched his thirteen children until they screamed at 
the top of their voice, and the ladies went to upsetting 
stools and drumming on the pews with their fan- 
handles. As soon as the reading was completed, the 
audience knelt and received my benediction. 

Thus did I outwit the dull Yankee brahi ; thus did 
I obey the order and trample it in the dust at the same 
time ; tlius did I save the great temple of Confederate 
Holiness from defilement and sacrilege. 

Eeturning from church, I indulged in liberal pota- 
tions, and made the proposition to the Weeping Or- 
phan of taking five hundred drinks in succession, and 
we went at it. I recollect swallowing the thirtieth, and 
then my Massive Brain lost a consciousness of mundane 
events. But when I awoke, I found that the "Weeping 
Orphan had stolen $3,000 out of my pocket, and ske- 
daddled, leaving his wife and thirteen children on my 
liands to support. Thus, in a moment, was I reduced 
from luxury to abject penury and degrading poverty; 
and my scanty earnings barely sustain the life of the 
helj)less ones that fortune has so unexpectedly thrown 
under the protecting segis of my Benevolence. 

But such is the fate of all sublunary greatness. The 
light that streams down from the morning sun is, ere 
lono^. hidden in the shadows of all-enshroudino^ nio^ht. 
The suiile that lights up the face of innocence and 



MACPHEKSON PHILOSOPHISES. 117 

beauty is soon dissipated and lost in the haggard lines 
of grief. Tlie step of youth must some da}^ totter with 
age ; the glory of life is transient as the meteor's flash ; 
and until I have an opportunity to take up another 
collection, or to steal a thousand dollars, I must grapple, 
single-handed and alone, with the ill fortunes of life, 
and remain gaunt with famine and thirst. 
Yours, theologically, 

James B. Macphekson. 



118 THE MACPHERSON LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

Macpherson as a Military Chieftain. — He is appointed 
A Major General of Confederate Volunteers. — He 
issues a Proclamation, raises an Army, and wins 
two Battles in a sin(5le Day, etc., etc. 

Note. — The rebel forces at Pontcliatoula, tlie capture of which 
place has already been noted, were composed, in part, of Choctaw 
Indians. Some of these were captured and brought to New Orleans 
as prisoners of war, 

Madisonville, La., 

May IGth, 1863. 

Sir: — Plunged suddenly into the depths of militaiy 
glory and renown, it becomes my pleasant duty to ac- 
quaint the aduiirmg millions who read my able pro- 
ductions, that Jeff. Davis, the great Confederate Jupiter, 
has appointed and commissioned me a Major General 
of Confederate Yolunteers, with my Idiotic Boy as 
Chief of Staff, and has erected this part of the Con- 
federacy into a military district, to be known as the 
Department of Madisonville. 

My first official act was to get blind drunk on Con- 
federate whisky, after which I directed my Idiotic 
Boy to issue my Proclamation, as follows : 

MaGjphersonh Proclamation. 

Head Qes. Depae't Madisonville, 

Madisonville, La., May 10th, 1863. 

General Order No. 1. 

In accordance with the unparalleled glory and dignity which 
now surround me, I hereby assume command of the army and 



AN ABSOEBING PEOFANITY. 119 

navy of the Department of Madisonville. I shall demand and 
enforce the fullest obedience to the Confederate Articles of War; 
and all male persons between the ages of ten and one hundred 
are hereby notified to report to me at once, armed and equii)ped 
for military service. Any citizen or resident of this Department, 
male or female, who shall hereafter prononnce the word " Yan- 
kee" without placing before it the Confederate adjective "damned," 
sliall be hung without trial. 

ISoldiers and females of Madisonville! arise in your might and 
glory, and hurl the terrific thunderbolts of merciless vengeance 
against the United States! In me you have a leader worthy of 
your highest confidence and admiration, who will lead you to im- 
mediate victory and undying renown. With my own hand I will 
plant the victorious Stars and Bars on the Custom House of New 
Orleans, and on the St. Charles and City hotels ; and sweeping 
with my legions like a besom of death-scattering destruction, I 
will not pause in my onward career of homicide and slaughter, 
until my unconquerable army shall enter the Arctic regions, and 
plant the almighty and overpowering flag of the Confederacy 
upon the North Pole, there to float as long as the all-nourishing 
earth shall revolve in the boundless and unfathomable realms of 
celestial space. 

By order of Maj. Gen. James B. Macpheeson. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 



The first extraordinary result of my promotion was 
an absorbing profanity, which compelled me to swear 
every time I opened my mouth ; and I believe that 
my experience in this respect is similar to that of most 
military men. Whereas, but a few days befoi^e I stood in 
the pulpit and expounded the Confederate religion to 
a benighted world, and presented myself as a model of 
the Christian virtues and graces, and a strict temper- 
ance man, I found, the moment I put on a uniform, I 
was bound to swear like a Second Dragoon, and drink 
like the Tenth Infantry. 

" Where is your army ?" asked the Idiotic Boy. 



120 " THE MACPHEKSON LETTEES. 

"Damn the army!" I replied. "It is a peculiarity 
of Confederate warfare, that a Major General requires 
no army. Proclamations, sir, proclamations are the 
things with wliich to crush the Yankee foe. How did 
Beauregard raise the blockade of Charleston ? With a 
Proclamation ! How did Magruder do the same thing 
at Galveston ? With a Proclamation ! How did Gov- 
ernor Moore conscript the niggers in the Trans-Missis- 
sippi Department? With a Proclamation ! Are they 
greater Generals than I? 'No, sir! You damned 
Idiot ! talk to me about an army ! I'll show you 
that I'm Major General and Commander of the Depart- 
ment. Pen, ink, paper, and gas are the only imple- 
ments necessary to secure a Confederate victory at 
every step !" I then wrung the Idiot's nose and swore 
to be revenged. 

Subsequently I determined to raise an army, and 
opened a Recruiting Office in Madisonville, and swore 
that 1 would fill the ranks at all hazards. I raised a 
Confederate flag two hundred feet long by Confederate 
measurement, which is four feet in Yankee mathemat- 
ics, and sent a nigger through the streets pounding on 
a tin pan to drum up recruits. The first one that came 
in was seventy-four years of age, blind in one eye, 
walking on two crutches, and armed with a buzz-saw. 

"Welcome!" I exclaimed, "young and ardent sol- 
dier of your country, to the headquarters of Confeder- 
ate glory. You are the nucleus of the army of this 
department, and I will lead you to endless conquest !" 
He then whirled his buzz-saw and took his place in 
line-of-battle. I conscripted two niggers to hold him 
up on his crutches w^hile he should fight. 



A COLUMN IN OEDEE OF BATTLE. 121 

rindiiig tliat tins patriotic youth was tlie only per- 
son who would voluntarily enlist, or voluntarily obey 
my orders, I resolved to enforce my authority at the 
point of the sword, 'mid scenes of broil and battle. I 
therefore mounted the Confederate Mule, the same an- 
imal that carried me to 'New Orleans when I attended 
the great Charity Fair, and drawing my shining blade 
with a Confederate flourish, placed myself at the head 
of the column, determined to lead in person, according 
to Macpherson's Confederate Tactics, a profound work 
on military science, which I had compiled the night 
before. I marched off in the following order : 1st. 
The General Commanding, viz., mj^self. 2d. Music, 
viz., the nigger with a tin pan. 3d. The column in 
order of battle, consisting of the patriotic youth, sup- 
ported on either flank by an African. 

I determined to make my first demonstration on the 
abode of a Choctaw Indian, who had some time been 
seen about Madisonville dressed in the peculiar and 
fantastic style of his race. Halting in front, I gave 
the order to deploy column in the back yard, for the 
purpose of cutting off retreat, while 1 should attack in 
front, with the musician supporting me as a reserve. 
These dispositions having been made on scientific 
principles, I gave the Confederate snort, the great sig- 
nal of attack. The Indian, started from his morning 
slumbers, without waiting to dress, jumped out of a 
side window and cut for the woods. " Sweet Choc- 
taw !" I exclaimed, "for the moment thy speed gives 
thee success ; but this is no fault of my tactics, and 
thou owest thy safety to the fact that I have not an 
adequate force to support my flanks. K thou thinkest 

6 



122 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

me deficient in the art of war, try and make thine es- 
cape through the back yard, over my invincible col- 
umn !" I then put spurs to my mule, and started in 
pursuit. After a race of two miles, I overtook him 
and held him, while, in obedience to my orders, the 
column came up, and the Choctaw was conscripted, 
and took his place in line of battle, a willing and obe- 
dient soldier of the Confederacy. '' The Great Spirit," 
I said to him, "will not send any Choctaw to the 
happy Hunting Grounds, unless he fights for the Con- 
federacy." The column then marched back to Madi- 
sonville. 

My Chief of Staff reported a case of gross and dam- 
nable insubordination, which I resolved to punish in 
Confederate style, with the fullest extremity of military 
vengeance. A young and able-bodied man, only sixty 
years of age, living in the suburbs of the city of Madi- 
sonville, had disregarded the order to enlist, and had 
concealed himself in the woods, armed with a shot-gun, 
determined to die rather than take up arms against the 
United States. I immediately ordered my forces, 
white and Choctaw, to advance, and halted at the res- 
idence of the accursed Yankee. Dismounting, I en- 
tered the house, where I found a woman and five chil- 
dren. " Where," I demanded in tones of thunder, 
flourishing my sword, and stamping my foot, " where, 
woman, is thy Yankee husband f ' 

" Oh, sir !" said she, falling at my feet, and looking 
imploringly in my face, " for the love of Heaven, spare 
him ! He is old and feeble, and we shall starve with- 
out him. We are poor and hungry, and he is our only 
hope. Look upon my children, and pity us." 



CONFEDERATE JUSTICE. 123 

"What are cliildren to me, or I to children?" I 
asked. " I am a Confederate General, sworn to win 
innumerable battles with this shining sword, and to 
exterminate the whole vile race of detested Yankees. 
Your husband shall die ! He is a Yankee !" 

" He is not a Yankee," said the woman ; " he was 
born and raised in Louisiana." 

" What do I care where he was born ?" I answered. 
" Every man wdio does not fall down and worship Jeff. 
Davis and the Southern Confederacy, and is not will- 
ing to leave wife. and children behind him to starve to 
death, for the sake of Southern independence, the same 
is a Yankee, and shall suffer death ?" I then ordered 
the Choctaw Division to advance, wdth two blood- 
hounds thrown out in front, as skirmishers and detect- 
ives, and gave orders to bring the villain, alive if pos- 
sible, but dead, if necessary. The Division gave the 
Choctaw warwhoop and advanced at the double-quick, 
and the bloodhounds soon got on the scent. In a few 
hours the accursed villain was brought to my head- 
quarters, bleeding from wounds inflicted by my skir- 
mishers. 

"I am old and feeble," he began to say, "and 
wholly unable to bear arms." 

" Silence !" I exclaimed. " Perhaps your benighted 
and besotted mind does not understand the great fun- 
damental principles of Confederate Justice, so beauti- 
fully illustrated in the official career of General Hind- 
man, who reprieved two men after they had been shot. 
It is a peculiarity in our system of jurisj)rudence, that 
we understand a case without asking any questions, 
and convict and punish a man without investigating 



124 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

liis case. I have Confederate brains in my head, and 
it is as clear to me as the light which beams from the 
all-beholding sun, that you are a Yankee Abolitionist. 
You will, therefore, prepare for instant death." 

A gallows was erected in front of his house, and he 
was hung by the Choctaw Division, under my order. 
As an act of mercy, I permitted his wife and children 
to witness the execution. 

Thus, in a single day, did I raise and equip a Con- 
federate army, discipline them, put them on a war 
footing, and win two battles. I retired for the night, 
thankful for the success of my patriotic, efforts, and 
panting for glory upon the field of carnage. 
Yours undeviatingly, 

James B. Macpherson. 



A 3VIIDNIGHT ASSASSIN. 125 



CHAPTEE XY. 

Macpherson Encounters and shoots a Midnight Assas- 
sin.— He CONSCRIPTS Negroes, and addresses them in 
A Manner calculated to arouse their Zeal in the Con- 
federate Cause. — He appoints his Staff, etc., etc. 

Note, — In tlie following letter the autlior attempted to exhibit tlie 
Southern method of treating negroes, and the inducements which the 

Richmond Government might offer them to serve in their cause. 

" The Inconso] able Thug," who receives a staff appointment, is a gentle- 
man whose history has been omitted in this volume. He had a phys- 
ical fight with Macpherson, in which the Confederate Philosopher 
was so badly worsted that he had to wear his head bandaged with 
'•' a material poultice" for some weeks. 

Madisonville, La., 

May 23, 1863. 

Sir : — Arousing from a dream, I looked up and saw 
a Midnight Assassin stealing into my room with fierce 
looks, and with a dagger in his hand, which he pur- 
posed to plunge into my vitals. This sight it was that 
harrowed up my soul, froze my young blood, made my 
two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, my knol;- 
ted and combined locks to part, and each particular 
hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcu- 
pine ! "Is this a dagger which I see before me?" I 
exclaimed : " or art thou but a dagger of the mind ; a 
false creation, proceeding from the rum-oppressed 
brain ? Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! Let the earth 
hide thee!" 

But the earth declined to do it, and the stealth}' 
Midnight Assassin, with murder in his heart and the 



126 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

instrument of death in his Rancl, stood over me, ready 
to perpetrate his crime of blood. " Such," I thought, 
"is the unhappy lot of greatness; to be exposed to the 
shafts of malignant envy, to be watched, hunted, fol- 
lowed, assassinated ! Oh that I were but an ordinary 
man ! Oh that nature had withholden from me the 
prolific gifts of Genius, and the masterly qualities of a 
military commander! Then I might have lived in 
quiet seclusion and peace ; but now I must die the vic- 
tim of envied greatness !" It then occurred to me 
that as a great Confederate General, it might be proper 
to show fight, and die in heroic combat, falling vrith 
my face to the foe. " What man dares, I dare ! " I 
exclaimed. "Approach thou like the rugged Russian 
Bear, the armed Rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan Tiger, 
and my firm nerves shall never tremble ! " As I said 
this, the cold perspiration stood upon my forehead. I 
then drew my Jeif. Davis revolver from under my 
head, and shot the villain dead on the spot! 

The moment I had committed this deed of homicide, 
my conscience reproved me, and trembling with fear, 
I wrapped my head uj) tight in the Confederate Blan- 
ket which always covers my martial couch. " I am," 
I said, " a foul and unnatural murderer ; and if justice 
dwells in Madisonville, I shall be hung by the neck 
until I am dead !" 

Aurora at last mounted her golden chariot, and the 
light of morning shed its celestial lustre over the man- 
inhabiting earth. But I, overcome by a consciousness 
of guilty homicide, dared not look up for two hours. 
Then I was moved by a conviction of duty, and wish- 
ing to drill my army in Confederate tactics, I resolved 



MADISONVILLE CONGO GUARDS. 127 

to leap boldly from my conch, gaze indifferently upon 
the mangled remains of my victim, and deny all knowl- 
edge of the transaction. Therefore, hurling the per- 
spiration-besmeared blanket from my august person, I 
leaped from the bed and opened my eyes, to fix them 
on the dead corse of my red-handed homicide. But I 
discovered that nobody was hurt. There was, how- 
ever, a distinct bullet-hole in my Gray Confederate 
breeches, that were hanging on a chair at the foot of 
the bed ; and these I had mistaken and shot for a Mid- 
night Assassin. 

TTie Madisonville Congo Guards. 

Therefore, I determined to conscript all niggers 
between the ages of nine and one hundred, within ^yg 
miles of Madisonville, and issued orders to that effect. 
But the vile darkies did not heed my commands, and 
I therefore deployed the buzz-saw Division as skir- 
mishers, with orders to fetch in every nigger that 
could be found. Ten of them w^ere captured and 
brought to my headquarters ; whereupon I proceeded 
to address them in a very able and patriotic manner, 
both upon the destiny of articulate-speaking men, and 
the duty of Confederate soldiers in the field, with the 
hope of instilling into their besotted intellects- some 
gloamings of the lofty and humane philosophy of the 
Confederacy. 

"You damned niggers!" I said; " you are about to 
be enrolled as Confederate soldiers, under the laws of 
Louisiana, and in accordance with the proclamation of 
Governor Moore. This is the highest honor that could 



128 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

be bestowed even upon a ■^liite man, and for you to 
receive it is a blessing so vast and incomprehensible 
that none but a Mammoth Brain can understand the 
full and imperishable felicity that has descended into 
your black souls. But you will please understand that 
this is not a compliment to you personally, but to the 
Confederacy which you represent; and you will also 
comprehend distinctly that you are not human beings 
at all, and that the design of the Infinite was that you 
should be slaves and wild beasts forever. The Con- 
federacy is based upon this divine law of nature, which 
made the Confederacy to boss and abuse niggers and 
keep them on a perfect equality with Confederate 
mules. You are the connecting link between man 
and the monkey, and differ from the Orang-Outang 
only in the gift of speech. This was given you by the 
Almighty, in order that you miglit better serve your 
masters ; for everybody must admit that a dumb nig- 
ger will not bring as high a price in the market as 
those that can utter speech. Yice President Stephens 
has nobly said that niggers are the corner-stone of the 
Confederacy, and this I wish to impress upon your 
debased and idiotic minds. Your heels are long and 
your shins tender, and that proves the truth of Judge 
Taney's declaration, that you haven't any rights that 
white men ought to respect. The Lord cursed Ham, 
and the ham was smoked. Therefore you are black, 
damn you ! and must be enslaved by the Confederates 
for evermore. I can prove it by the Confederate 
Bible ; for the theology of the Confederacy, as I 
showed in my celebrated sermon from the words, 
'Blow ye,' permits true believers to strike out any pas- 



ADDliESS TO THE CONGO GUARDS. 129 

sage of Scripture tliey don't like, and to put in any 
tiling they'd like to have there. 

" Therefore it is that the Confederate Theology is 
superior to every other. You can prove any tiling 
you want to by it, or you can confound every theory 
ever started or adopted by mortal man. The Confed- 
erate Bible is on a par with the Confederate Arithme- 
tic, and I am the author of both. Therefore, let no 
nigger dispute my words, for I can prove every thiug 
I say. You are niggers, and niggers are not men, and 
it is now your glorious privilege to fight for these di- 
vine j)rinciples of the Southern Confederacy — princi- 
ples founded upon the great and everlasting law of 
Confederate veracity." 

The effect of this splendid oration upon those to 
whom it was addressed, was, indeed, like magic. The 
bold declarations of truth smote upon their heathenish 
and bestial intellects, and insj^ired them with overpow- 
ering and matchless zeal for Southern Independence. 
They gave five hundred cheers for the Confederacy, 
and six hundred for me, and threw their hats a thou- 
sand feet in the air by Confederate measurement, Avhile 
the biggest nigger, grinning from ear to ear, struck up 
the Old John Brown song, the whole Congo Division 
joining in the chorus: "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" 
Immediately the spirit of prophecy and of jDoesy de- 
scended upon me, and I composed a Confederate war- 
song, to be sung on all occasions, as follows : 



130 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 



SONG OF THE CONGO GUARDS. 

By James B. Macpherson, Author of the Confederate Arithmetic and the 
Hymn of Salvation. 

1. 

Oil the niggers tliey are monkeys and were born for slavery. 
The niggers they are monkeys and were born for slavery, 
The niggers they are monkeys and were born for slavery. 
As we go fighting along. 
Glory, glory, hallelujah! 
Glory, glory, hallekijah ! 
Glory, glory, hallelujah! 
As we go fighting along. 

2. 

Oh the abolition Yankees they are a set of thieves. 
The abolition Yankees, &c., &c. 

I sliould have proceeded further with this beautiful 
production, but I have adopted the rule that I will 
never write a poem of more than two stanzas. I then 
proceeded to arm the Congo Division with sheep- 
shears, and issued the following General Order : 

Headquaeters, 
Department of Madisonville, 
Madisonville, La., May 20th, 1863. 

General Order No. 3. 

The General Commanding hereby gives notice that the follow- 
ing high-toned gentleman and officers will constitute his staff, 
and will be obeyed and respected accordingly until farther 
orders : 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

The Honest Jew, Chief Quartermaster. 

The Unhappy Ofss, Chief Commissary. 

The Solitary Horseman, Chief of Cavalry. 

The Noble Woman, Superintendent of the Great Confederate 
Clothing Emporium in New Orleans. 

The Inconsolable Thug, Chief of Artillery. 

The Weeping- Orphan, Judge Advocate. 

The Southern Sourck, Chief of Signal Corps. 



CONFEDERATE LAW OF PEOMOTION. 131 

The officers above named will report immediately at the Great 
Confederate Clothing Emporium, in Canal street, and the ladies 
of New Orleans are hereby directed to furnish a uniform for 
each, out of the great Charity Fund. 

By order of Majoe Geneeal James B. Macphekson. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staflf. 

It will be seen that in the above order I have fol- 
lowed the Confederate law of promotion, and given a 
posish to each of my friends. I shall make each of 
my nine sons a Brigadier General as soon as I can re- 
cruit nine men. 

Yours, boldly, 

James B. Macpherson. 



132 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

The Registered Enemies of the United States leave 
THE Department of the Gulf. — General Macpherson 
superintends their Departure. — He "Gobbles" them as 

SOON AS they arrive IN HIS DOMINIONS. He UNEXPECT- 
EDLY MEETS THE HoNEST JeW, ETC., ETC. 

Note. — On the 30tli of April, 1863, an order was publislied by Major 
General Banks, requiring all registered enemies of the United States 
to leave the Department of the Gulf, on or before tlic fifteenth day 
of the next month. As no one could sail for any port in the United 
States or a foreign country without taking the oath of allegiance to the 
United States, the registered enemies were compelled to go over to the 
•* Confederacy," for which they had professed such a profound rever- 
ence and love. So long as they were forbidden to go, they were loud 
in their complaints tliat the cruel and despotic government should 
prevent them from joining their friends ; but when they were or- 
dered to go, all their zeal disappeared, and they were equally loud in 
their complaints that the cruel and despotic government should com- 
pel them to go. When the time of their departure actually arrived, 
they presented a melancholy spectacle ; a more dejected set of wretches 
was never seen. To add to their grief, as soon as they arrived in 
Mobile, the able-bodied men were forced to join the rebel army. The 
order sending them out of the Department was received with great 
exultation by the Union citizens of New Orleans; for some of these 
registered enemies had become very insolent, under the lenity that 
permitted them to remain in the city. Many of them had registered 
their names as enemies of the United States, in order to make them- 
selves popular with the secessionists, and '.vithout any expectation 
that they would ever be compelled to leave the Department. And 
when they found that the fact of being registered enemies in- 
volved the necessity of going away, and, as was the case with many, 
of leaving home, family, and kindred behind them, perhaps forever, 
the romance all melted into thin air, and they discovered that a sen- 
timental attachment for the land of Jeff. Davis, which could be cher- 
ished in security at a distance, was quite a different matter when it 
exiled them from the comforts and pleasures of civilised life. 



REGISTERED ENEMIES. lo6 

Madisonville, La., 

May 30tli, 1863. 

Sir : — A Macedonian cry came to me as in my dilap- 
idated hospitable abode I meditated schemes of blood- 
shed and revenge. It came from 'New Orleans, from a 
Eegistered Enemy, and said : " What shall I do ? Come 
over and help me !" 

Arriving in JSTew Orleans, I immediately called upon 
the Macedonian, and with him forthwith went down to 
Lakeport to witness the departure of the first regular 
load of Registered Enemies. " E'ow," I said, " there 
will be a grand secession demonstration, exceeding that 
on the levee, when the women turned out en masse to 
kiss the departing Confederate prisoners. I will sum- 
mon the people to arms, raise a revolt, capture JSTew 
Orleans, and add it to the Department of Madisonville !" 

But when I arrived at the point of embarkation my 
soul and face became swollen with Confederate indite- 
nation. For instead of a grand secesh demonstration 
I only found a small crowd of weeping Vv^omen and 
wailing children, who said they wished their husbands 
and fathers had taken the oath of allegiance to the 
United States, instead of running oft' to the Confederacy 
and leaving them to starve alone. 

" Stop such treasonable talk as that !" I shouted in 
tones of Confederate thunder. " Every person who 
utters a sentiment favorable to the Union, will have his 
name written down, and he shall be hung when the 
Confederates come here !" 

"What has the United States done so bad?" asked a 
woman w^ho was weeping in a base and cowardly man- 
ner at the departure of her husband. " Did we not 



134 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

live together in peace and -plenty before tlie Soutli 
seceded? What wickedness did the United States 
commit ?" 

" It robbed iis of eternal rights," I answered. 

" Is it not the eternal right of a wife to be protected 
by her husband, and to have her children fed and cared 
for by their father ?" asked she, in a violent flood of 
tears. 

" Base, cowardly woman !" I exclaimed ; " the great 
light of Confederate Science has never pierced your 
weak and debased intellect. "Women and children, 
food and raiment, are nothing beside Southern Inde- 
pendence. Were it not for the rebellion, would I ever 
have been a Major General ? 'No ! Would Jeff. Davis 
have been a President ? 'No ! Would My Idiotic Boy 
have been Chief of Staff, or the Honest Jew a Qu£trter- 
master ? No ! Such, madame, are the happy fruits of 
rebellion. What to me are weeping women and starv- 
ing children ? — what desolate firesides and blasted fields ? 
— what trenches of buried soldiers and plantations gone 
to waste ? E"othing ! These are the price of Confed- 
erate shoulder-straps and civic crowns. What though 
they are stained in innocent blood and bathed in wom- 
an's tears ? They glitter all the same, and glory still 
summons the Confederate Warrior to the field ! Starve, 
for ought I care ! The more that starve, the less there 
will be to feed on the next crop !" 

" You are an unfeeling brute !" sobbed the woman. 

" Madame," I replied, drawing myself up to my full 
height, and smiting my breast with great dignity ; 
" madame, if my position does not protect me from in- 
sult, my sex at least should be respected !" 



REGISTERED ENEMIES. 135 

I tlien turned away with an air of justly offended 
pride, and turned my eyes upon the black ship, about 
to depart for the lovely shores of my native land. I 
expected to see countenances gleaming with joy and 
patriotic pride. " These true and devoted friends of 
the Confederacy," I said, " have filled the earth wdth 
their moans, to be allowed to come to us, when they 
knew they couldn't ; and now that they are at last al- 
lowed to come to our sweet land of cotton and inde- 
pendence, their faces will glow with unspeakable de- 
light i" Imagine my burning wrath, when instead of 
this, I saw a pack of the most dejected devils that my 
eyes ever rested upon. One was looking at his wife 
and children with streaming eyes, and asking in a low 
moan if it was too late to take the Oath of Allegiance. 

" Too late !" replied a Yankee Demon. Then the 
Eegistered Enemy smote his forehead with his hand, 
and said he had made a damned fool of himself, to 
which the Yankee Demon nodded assent. 

" Beloved Confederates !" I said, addressing them 
from the shore ; " as the Children of Israel, represented 
in Madisonville by the Honest Jew, wandered for forty 
years in the "Wilderness, but at last found the happy 
land of Canaan, so have you, while twelve times the 
Moon hath filled her horn, borne with meek patience 
the unsufferable and loathsome bondage of the United 
States, sighing for the happiness of the Confederacy. 
But now the long night of your vassalage has been dis- 
pelled by the brilliant splendor of the rising Confederate 
Sun, and you are about to plant your Aveary feet in 
Madisonville, a land that flows with milk and honey, 
where the butchery of the Yankee Demons cannot dis- 



13 (3 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

tiirb the quiet security of yeur throats, and where the 
Stars and Bars will stand between jou and all harm." 

Even this eloquence did not arouse their stupid souls, 
and I turned away in disgust, reluctantly concluding 
that the Registered Enemies were a lot of blockheads. 

I immediately started for Madisonville on my Con- 
federate Mule, in order to get there before the Regis- 
tered Enemies reported at my headquarters. 

MaGjpherson meets the Honest Jew. 

As I was going hurriedly home, I saw a man in the 
woods tucking rolls of paper into the trunk of a hollow 
tree. Approaching him stealthily, I was astonished to 
recognize in him my integrity-loving friend and Con- 
federate co-laborer, the Honest Jew. Wishing to give 
him a pleasant surprise, I caught him violently by the 
collar and planted my right foot stoutly against his 
shins, before he was aware of my presence. 

He jumped eight feet in the air, and struck the 
ground, looking pale as a corpse, exclaiming with fero- 
cious earnestness : 

" I no steal 'em ! I pe berfectly mnocent ! — berfectly 
innocent !" 

" My innocent and outraged friend !" I replied, " of 
course you are innocent. Who accused you of stealing ?" 

" Gott im Himmel !" shouted the Honest Jew ; " I 
taut you pe vun tam tief and robber. I now know you 
pe mine tear Sheneral." We then clasped each other 
in a tender, loving embrace, until our bosoms were 
bathed in tears of mutual love. 

" A pleasant surprise, my dear," I said. 



THE HONEST JEW FINANCIEEING. 137 

" Oil, yah, villi, selir tarn bleasant siirbrise," lie an- 
swered. 

" What have you here ?" I asked, approaching the 
tree. 

" E'oting, noting at all," he answered. 

" Then there can be no harm if I look at nothing," I 
answered, and then proceeded to examine the tree, 
when I discovered several very large rolls of Confed- 
erate treasury notes. " Sweet disciple of Moses," I 
said, " whence and for whom this vast treasure ?" 

" Mine !" he cried, while a look of agony passed over 
his features. 

" Sir !" I said, " you are a swindler and thief! I am 
your superior officer, and I swear that unless you divide 
with me justly and fairly, I will hang you, and expose 
to the world your infamous crimes !" 

The Honest Jew then swore he always intended to 
divide with me, and that he hid the bills only as a 
means of security. I then asked him how he had man- 
aged to accumulate such vast wealth. 

" I sells the glothing and horses," he replied. I then 
learned that, after conscripting an army, the Honest 
Jew had drawn clothing and horses from the Govern- 
ment, and that he had sold the clothing to the soldiers 
and the horses to the highest bidder, and that the 
money in the tree was the fruit of this- scheme, alike 
creditable to his head and heart. 

" E'othing," I remarked, " but an equal distribution 
of the proceeds, could have reconciled me to this admi- 
rable trick. Come once more to my bosom !" 

" I make you very rich in five tays," said the Honest 
Jew. 



138 THE MACPIIEKSON LETTERS. 

"How," I asked. 

" You vait for the Registered Enemies," lie answered. 

Arri\dng at Headquarters, I found that great numbers 
of Registered Enemies had arrived and were arriving 
from JSTew Orleans, and thereupon I immediately issued 
an order on the subject, as follows : 

Headquaetees, 
Depaetment of Madisonville, 
Madisonville, La., May 28th, 1863. 

General Order No. 3. 

Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of the Major-General 
commanding this Department, that certain and numerous persons, 
pretending to be Registered Enemies of the United States have 
arrived within the limits of his command from New Orleans, it 
is therefore ordered : That all the Registered Male Enemies of the 
United States coming to these shores, not over one hundred years 
of age, shall be immediately conscripted and enrolled as a part of 
the military force of this Department ; unless they shall pay over 
to the Chief Quartermaster the sum of one thousand dollars, iu 
which case they shall be exempt from the draft. 

By order of Majoe Geneeal James B. Macpiieeson. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

The iirst Registered Enemy who reported himself at 
Headquarters was the Macedonian, who came with a 
smiling face, and, slapping me on the shoulder, said : 
" Our relations have been so pleasant heretofore, that I 
shall find in jour sweet society full compensation for 
the sacrifice I make in leaving my native land." But 
I put on a look of ofiended dignity, and inquired who it 
was that>presumed to make himself so familiar ! I then 
handed him a copy of the above order, and he turned 
pale as a ghost when he read it. However, he paid one 
thousand dollars to the Honest Jew. In all five hundred 



THE COMMUTED MEN CONSCEIPTED. 139 

men paid their thousand dollars, wliicli made the hand- 
some sum of five hundred thousand dollars to be equally 
divided between the Honest Jew and myself. I then 
issued the following : 

Headqijartees, 
Depaetment of Madisonville, 
Madisonville, La., May 29th, 1863. 
General Order No. 4. 

So mach of G-eneral Order No. 3, as relates to the Exemption 
of Kegistered Enemies from tlie operation of the Conscript law 
on payment of one thousand dollars, is hereby rescinded ; and all 
Registered Enemies, without exception, will immediately report 
armed and equipped for military service, the same as though the 
said sum had never been paid. 

By order of Major General James B. Macpherson. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

" By whajt code of justice is it," inquired the Mace- 
donian, " that, after taking our money on promise of 
exemption, you compel us to enter the service ? " 

"By the code of Confederate justice," I replied: 
" the same principle that is in force in Wew Orleans, 
which compels negro property-holders to j)ay taxes for 
the support of schools, and then forbids them to send 
their children to school ; and the same principle by 
which John C. Breckinridge, sitting in the Senate of 
the United States, and drawing his salary from the 
United States treasury, plotted and toiled for the down- 
fall of the Union, and the up-building of the Southern 
Confederacy." 

Settlement with the Honest Jew, 

At midnight, in my guarded tent, I summoned the 
Honest Jew to my presence, and told him we had 



140 THE ilACPHERSON LETTERS. 

made a million dollars, aifd it was time to divide. I 
therefore ordered him to settle immediately, and to 
pay over to me one-half the profits, in accordance 
with the bargain fairly agreed to by both parties. 

" Show me your receii3ts," said the Jew ; " I can bay 
no monish mitout receipts to show I owe it !" 

" Loathsome and disgusting reptile ! " I exclaimed, 
" is it thus you trifle with pecuniary rights and eternal 
justice ? Is it thus you seek to subvert the principles 
of Confederate veracity, and uproot the very founda- 
tions of society ? Can you expect to rob the Confed- 
eracy and its loyal subjects with impunity, and not 
divide the profits with your Commanding General ! I 
will show you that it cannot be done. For half thy 
wealth, it is Macpherson's ; the other half comes to the 
general State which I represent, and so I'll take the 
whole." 

" Is"ay, take my life and all, j^ardon not that ;" re- 
plied the Honest Jew, " you take my house when you 
do take the prop that doth sustain my house ; you take 
my life when you do take the means whereby I live." 

" Bring hither the cash and abjure thy vile faith, 
and thou shalt live and have half," I said. 

" Yah," replied the Honest Jew, " I do that mit time. 
I goes now and pring you the monish." 

He then started ofi" to bring to my tent the treasure ; 
and I lay congratulating myself that I had made half 
a million dollars, and converted a Jew to the true faith. 
But hour after hour passed, and the Honest Jew did 
not return. Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, 
daylight, and no welcome Mosaic footstep came to 
cheer me in my waiting loneliness. 



THE HONEST JEW SKEDADDLES. 141 

" Oh Honest Jew ! " I cried in my distress, "what 
evil hath befallen thee? Oh whither hast thou wan- 
dered? Did thy pions yonthfiil feet go astray iu the 
woods ? " I then hastened to the hollow tree, hoping 
at least to find the treasure, even if I could not once 
more clasp the Honest Jew to my bosom in a loving 
embrace. But imagine my grief, terror, rage, when I 
discovered that the vile villain had gobbled up all the 
money and skedaddled to distant and unknown j)laces, 
leaving me once more to groan and moan in honest 
poverty, the victim of loathsome and disgusting ras- 
cality. 

Yours eternally, 

James B. Macphekson. 



142 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 



CHAPTEE XYII. 

An Accoukt of the Death of James B. Macpherson, 
THE Great Confederate Philosopher, Warrior, Author, 
AND Southern Blower. 

Note. — The author determined to discontinue Macpherson's Let- 
ters, and knew of no better way than to kill him off. Accordingly 
the following obituary notice was prepared and published in The 
Era of June 7th. 

Hung be the heavens with black ! — yield day to night ! 
Comets, importing change of times and States, bran- 
dish your crystal tresses in the sky, and with them 
scourge the bad revolting stars, that have consented to 
Macpherson's death ! 

It becomes our painful duty to announce to the 
world the death of James B. Macpheeson, of Madi- 
sonville, Louisiana, Major General of Confederate Yol- 
unteers, invincible warrior and pugilist, Plato of the 
Confederacy, Archimedes of the New ]^ation. Author 
of the celebrated Confederate Arithmetic, Traveller 
through the Louisiana Lowlands Low, Father of twelve 
sons, Clergyman, and Southern Blower — the scintilla- 
tions of whose Ponderous Litellect have so long illu- 
minated the columns of The Era. The Mammoth 
Brain of our revered correspondent no longer works ; 
the Herculean Arm is no longer bared in the cause 
of the Confederacy he so faithfully and zealous- 
ly represented ; the tongue of persuasive eloquence 
has been silenced in the embrace of all-devouring 
Death ! He expired at his dilapitated hospitable 



MACPHEKSON DRINKING HEMLOCK. x4:S 

abode, in Madisonville, at the solemn hour of mid- 
night, last Monday, being the six hundred and sixtieth 
Olympiad and the third year thereof, and the year 3 of 
the Southern Confederacy. 

The cause of his death is melancholy beyond de- 
scription. He did not fall in battle, as was his ardent 
desire, at the head of his invincible legions, dealing 
death and destruction among vile Yankee foes ; but he 
fell a victim to his own hands. In a word, he com- 
mitted suicide. Calling his Idiotic Boy to his side, he 
exclaimed : 

" Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, 
and resolve itself into a dew ! or that the Everlasting 
had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! Now 
indeed I fear the avenging wrath of the offended gods 
of Olympus. But if I would reach the Elysian Fields, 
where dwells the soul of tlie great Achilles, I must die 
at once, like Socrates, the Philosopher, by drinking 
poisonous hemlock ! " 

Having announced his determination, his family and 
his staff in vain gathered around him with tears, striv- 
ing to win him from his fatal purpose. They pointed 
out to him the deadly stroke the Confederacy wonld 
suffer; the pallor with which Philosophy and Reli- 
gion would hear of his death ; the inconsolable tears of 
his wife and staff; the exultation of the Yankee De- 
mon, and the honest grief of The Era. But all in 
vain. " I love the Confederacy with intense and pas- 
sionate love," he answered, " but the will of the gods 
and the Yoice of Oracular Fate must be obeyed ! " 
He then ordered the hemlock to be brought to him in 
a five-gallon demijohn, and calmly entered upon the 



144 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

business of preparation forliis journey across the St^'X, 
— or to quote from liis own beautiful words, for " the 
coming of that solemn hour, when neither worldly 
pomp, nor martial renown, nor yet the brave love of 
the Confederacy which j)ervades every impulse of my 
soul, and every throb of my heart, can stay my foot- 
steps in the last pilgrimage to the realms of Pluto." 



Mac^phersoTh's Will. 

He then took four drinks of the hemlock, and pro- 
ceeded to make his will, with all the calmness and dig- 
nity of Confederate greatness. 

" To my faithful and beloved wife," he said, " I give 
and bequeath my dilapidated hospitable abode, and 
all it contains ; to my Idiotic Boy, the mantle of Phi- 
losophy and the management of Confederate Policy ; t(> 
my staff, I give my sword and uniform, and it is my 
wish that after my death they shall contend for it in 
single combat, as Ulysses and Telamonian Ajax con- 
tended for the armor of divine Achilles; and to the 
combatants for the splendid prize, I say in the words 
of man-smiting Heenan, r/iay the test Tncrn win! 

"To the Noble Woman and the ladies of ISTew 
Orleans, I leave the task of fanning and keeping alive 
the fires of treason in the Yankee-oppressed Crescent 
City." 

Having made the above disposition of his worldly 
affairs, he took four drinks of the hemlock, and re- 
marked that the working of the Mammoth Brain would 
cease the moment the working of the fatal hemlock 
began. 



THE DEATH-BED SCENE. 145 

"To the Unhappy Cuss," he said, "Heave the ar- 
ranerements for the funeraL I wish to be buried with 
military honors worthy of ni}^ rank and name. I wish 
to have my funeral modelled on that of Alexander the 
Great, a warrior whose fame was only surpassed by my 
own. In the third Section of the sixteenth Book of 
Eollin's History, you will find an account of the cer- 
emonies performed at the interment of the Conqueror 
of the World ; and I wish those performances to be 
carried out to the letter, over my own remains." 

At this stage of the solemn scene, there was a loud 
wail heard in the door, and looking around there was 
seen the Honest Jew, pale and haggard, and bathed 
with tears. He fell upon the floor, rolled over, threw 
himself upon the neck of the expiring Philosopher, 
tore his hair, and asked to be forgiven. 

" To err is human — to forgive divine !" answered the 
dying General. " Your arrival is most opportune, for 
the treasury is empty and the preparations for my 
funeral will involve an immense outlay. Promise to 
defray these expenses, and I will forgive you all." 

" I bromise," said the ITonest Jew ; and then the 
two great men, happily reconciled, embr^iced with 
touching affection. 

" It has been the great purpose of my life," said the 
expiring Warrior, " to re-establish in all its glory the 
worship of the Olympian gods ; for the pagan religion 
alone, w^ith such additions as I have made, is fitted to 
the demands of the Confederacy. But I am cut off by 
Fate in the midst of my labors, and I desire to be 
buried after the manner of the Greeks and Romans." 

Midnight at last cast the shadow of deepest gloom 



116 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

• 

over the face of universal nature. The great Macpher- 
son had now nearly emptied the demijohn, and all felt 
conscious tliat the fatal hemlock must soon do its hor- 
rible work. Suddenly he gave a wild groan, and, rising 
in his couch, smote his breast and spake his last words, 
as follows : 

Last Words of MacjpJieTson. 

" The long day has passed," he exclaimed ; " the 
long night is come ! O Jupiter ! thou great father of 
gods and men, the most high and powerful among the 
immortals, w^hom all others obey ! avenge the wrongs 
of the Confederacy, and smite the Yankees with the 
bolts of thy thunder! Farewell, brave Staff! Carry 
out the policy which I have inaugurated, imitate my 
valor, and always buy your hats of Stapleton, 95 
Canal-street." 

A cold sweat then stood upon his intellectual brow ; 
the eyes became fixed, the lips ceased to move, and 
James B. Macphekson, the great light of Confederate 
letters, the favorite of the ladies of ISTew Orleans, ceased 
to breathe the vital air. 

We have the authority of the Southern Source, a 
member of his staff, for saying that prodigies of na- 
ture attended the departure of the valorous chieftain to 
the realms of Pluto. He informs ns that cloud-com- 
pelling Jove, at the moment of dissolution, hurled a 
living bolt of thunder from Mount 01ym23us, which 
smashed the five-gallon demijohn, that had held the 
impious poison, into a thousand atoms, and tore the 
musquito bar worse than was torn that one which Mac- 



147 

pherson described in the great Temple of Wisdom at 
Brasliear City. 

Long and bitterly did liis staff and bis friends gaze 
upon bis serene countenance ; not even tbe pallor of 
deatb could erase tbe lineaments of tbougbt or bide 
tbe j^lii'eiioiogical developments of tbe Mammotb 
Brain. Tben tbe Honest Jew brougbt in a coffin of 
baked clay, and every tiling was prepared for tbe im- 
posing ceremonies of tbe interment, wbicb were per- 
formed with great pomp, and were an exact copy of 
those performed in honor of Alexander the Great, ex- 
cept that Macpherson's chariot was trimmed with brass 
instead of gold. Tbe following inscription, composed 
by Macpherson himself, was placed over his Tomb, at 
his own request : 

JACOBUS B. MACPHERSON. 

ILLUSTRISSIMUS, 

SCRIPTOR, POETA, MATHEMATICUS, FCEDERATUS, 
PR^DICATOR, MILES EXERCITATUS. JOVI, FILIUS 
TERTIUS, HERCULIS Kl BACCHI FRATER, FOEDERIS 
AUSTRALIS PLATO, ET PERIGRINATOR CELEBERRI- 
MUS. 

IMMATURA MORTE ABRIEPIEBATUR OLYMPIADIS 
SEXCENTESIM^ ET SEXCENGESIM^ ANNO TERTIO, 
ET FCEDERIS AUSTRALIS ANNO TERTIO. 

DEOS OLYMPIACOS ADORABAT, ET UT IN CAM- 
PIS ELY3IIS MANES ACHILLIS CONJUNGERET, E 
VITA CEDEBAT. 

Our task is accomplished ; our mournful duty is done. 
If the Southern Confederacy has lost its brightest or- 
nament, the Editor of The Eea has lost his most high- 



14:8 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

falutin contributor. In conclusion, we have to ac- 
knowledge our indebtedness to the Idiotic Boy, and 
other members of General Macpherson's staff, for the 
particulars of his death. The great Philosopher and 
hero who has departed, has often reminded our readers 
that man is mortal, and that earthly greatness soon 
vanishes, like the dews in the sunshine of the unclouded 
heaven. Let each take the lesson home, remembering 
that even the Mammoth Brain of Macpherson had to 
succmnb to the power with which earth's greatest men 
have contended in vain. There is no fountain of per- 
petual youth, even in the Southern Confederacy, nor 
yet in Madison ville, a place which Macpherson assured 
us flows with milk and honey ! 



EESUSCITATION OF MACPHEKSON. 149 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

The Resuscitation of Macpherson. — It is Discovered that 
HE WAS NOT Dead, only Dead Drunk. — His Method of 
Paying Debts. — He makes the Acquaintance of the 
Reliable Gentleman, etc., etc. 

Note. — During the siege of Port Hudson, New Orleans was daily 
fiUed with rumors of disasters to the army of General Banks, which 
were industriously circulated by the secessionists. Men apparently 
made it their principal business to lounge around the St. Charles Hotel, 
and to retail these unfounded reports. Every statement made by the 
" Reliable Gentleman" in his conversation with Macpherson, the 
author himself heard at different times in that building. The noise 
made by piling wood on the levee was, on one occasion, mistaken for 
the roar of artillery by some negroes ; and from this incident arose a 
report of a disastrous repulse of our army. Macpherson was re- 
suscitated in obedience to what appeared to be a very general demand 

on the part of the readers of The Era. The Registered Enemies 

who went from New Orleans to Mobile, carried most astounding 
news. On their statements one of the Mobile papers issued an extra 
announcing that New Orleans had been captured by the Confederates 
under Magruder, who immediately started for Forts Jackson and St. 

Philip with a force of fifteen thousand men. It may be proper, in 

this connection, to state that during the siege of Port Hudson, a for- 
midable force of Texans advanced into Western Louisiana, witli the 
intention of taking the fort at Donaldsonville (a village about eighty 
miles above New Orleans), cutting off the supplies of General Banks, 
seizing all the vessels that could be found, crossing the river and 
making a descent upon New Orleans. This force was variously esti- 
mated at ten thousand to eighteen thousand men. The plans of the 
rebels were frustrated by two serious defeats — one at Lafourche 
Crossing, and the other at Donaldsonville. The defense of the fort 
at the latter place was one of the most brilliant of the war. The 
garrison consisted of about a hundred and fifty men, under command 
of Major Bullen, and many of these were convalescents. The attack- 
ing force, under General Greene, consisted of an entire brigade. The 
gunboat Princess Royal, under Commander Wolsey, checked the ad- 
vance of tlie enemy. A desperate hand-to-hand fight occurred, the 



150 THE MACPHEESON LP:TTEE?. 

enemy advancing to tlie parapet. * A hundred and twenty rebel pris- 
oners were actually captured by the garrison, inside tlie works. 
About a hundred of the enemy's dead were buried by our soldiers ; 
and the rebel loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was about four 
times as large as the entire force defending the place. Our loss was 
inconsiderable. The fight at Lafourche Crossing was also a brilliant 
affair. There were, in fact, two engagements, in both of which the 
enemy was repulsed with severe los"s. Colonel Cahill and Colonel 
Stickney gained great credit in the successful defense of the place. 
General Emory was at that time in command of the defenses of New 
Orleans, and no officer could have performed his duties more vigilant- 
ly or faithfully. The capture of Brashear City, and the erection of 
rebel batteries on the river, threatened to sever all communication with 
General Banks's forces at Port Hudson, and New Orleans itself was 
menaced. The secessionists were in constant expectation of the ar- 
rival of a rebel army, for many days ; and the Union citizens, as well 
as the officers in command, were not certain their expectation would 
not be realised. General Shepley, Military Governor of the State, called 
upon the people to rally for the defense of their homes, and formed a 
brigade for sixty days' service. General Emory called for negro volun- 
teers, and two regiments were promptly raised. The author has 

deemed it proper to make these explanations, in order to show the 
reader what a fruitful field New Orleans presented, in those days, for 
" Reliable Gentlemen" and " Intelligent Contrabands." 

MADIS02s VrLLE, L.A, 

June 27th, 1863. 
Sie: — I died in the consoling faith that I was the 
Biggest Liar in the Southern Confederacy ; but after 
the arrival of the Registered Enemies in Alabanta, I 
found they were going so far ahead of me in that line, 
that I shoukl have to rise from my grave and vindicate 
my noble reputation by the invention of more sublime 
falsehoods than ever before graced my able produc- 
tions. In truth, the mendacious stories those unhappy 
exiles spread in the streets of Mobile actually made my 
bones rattle in their coffin ; and I came forth like that 
mythological giant whose name I have forgotten ; but 
who, smitten to the earth, always arose with renewed 



NOT DEAD — ONLY DEAD DRUNK. 161 

streiigtli ; and I will now tell such astounding lies as 
shall cause the Yankees to howl and the Confederacy 
go mad in the ecstasies of bliss ! 

An account of my death and burial has been pub- 
lished, and a Latin inscription placed on my tomb, so 
ponderous and incomprehensible that all hope of resus- 
citation seemed to be at an end. It was given out that 
I had committed self-slaughter, by drinking poisonous 
hemlock from a five-gallon demijohn. But the truth 
is, I was not dead, but only dead drunk, and the hem- 
lock was only ordinary Louisiana Rnm. 

Alexander the Great drank the health of his friend 
Proteas in the Cup of Hercules, a Dutch Lager Beer 
arrangement, that held six bottles. Lie pledged his 
friend tlie second time in this enormous bumper, and 
immediately fell flat and died. Socrates, the greatest 
philosopher of the Greeks, as I am of the Confederates, 
took one swig of hemlock, and expired. In order to 
show myself superior to both of these, I drank the five 
gallons of Louisiana Rum, convinced that it is more 
fatal than the liquid consumed by Alexander, or the 
hemlock imbibed by Socrates. But I played dead to 
se6 what the newspapers would say about me, and 
what action wonid be taken by the Confederate Gov- 
ernment. ••? 

Much to my astonishment, the Yankee Eea w^as the 
only paper in 'New Orleans that paid any attention 
whatever to my death. The others had been profuse 
in their tears over Stonewall Jackson ; they had made 
themselves and their readers perfectly miserable over 
every two-penny Confederate hero who got killed or 
drank himself to death ; but when I, who had always 



152 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

praised them — I, who had "been the champion of their 
creed, and lied on the same side — I, Macpherson, the 
great and shining light of the Confederacy, the Invin- 
cible Warrior and the most magnificent Blower the 
Confederate Sun ever shone upon in all his course — I 
say, when I, greater and wiser than all, was supposed to 
be dead and gone to my grave, they had not a tear to 
shed for me ; not a black column-rule with which to 
ex23ress an emotion of grief; not even a line among the 
editorial notices of auction sales and health-restoring 
patent pills, to announce the destruction of my noble 
mind, and the overthrow of the greatest Intellect tiiat 
the world has ever known. Then it was I found how 
sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a cussed 
fool for a friend. 

Macpherson comes forth. 

Wednesday evening, June 17th, in the third year of 
Confederate Independence, was the anniversary of the 
Yankee battle of Bunker Hill, w^here the ragged 
American militia clinched boldly with the British 
Eegulars. The pale new moon presented the faintest 
possible crescent outline of beautiful silver, sinking 
into the boundless expanse of Western Louisiana, when 
I arose in all the habiliments with which the Honest 
Jew had clothed me, and proceeded to my D. H. A. 
(said initials being a classical abbreviation for my 
Dilapidated Hospitable Abode). 

As I entered that renowned mansion, more famous 
than the White House at Washington, or the Pewter 
Mug of ]^ew York, tlie Idiotic Boy fell flat on the 



NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS. 153 

floor, overcome with strange uneartlilj fear, and cried 
aloud : " Tell me wliy thy canonised bones, hearsed in 
death, have burst their cerements ; why the sepulchre 
wherein we saw thee quietly inurned, hath oped his 
ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again ! 
What may this mean, that thou, dread corse, again in 
complete steel, revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, 
making night hideous ? " 

'^ Dry up ! " I replied, at the same time hitting him 
in the chops, and loudly demanding a drink of gin. 

Maep/ierson pays Ms Debts hy a General Order. 

I found a vast number of bills from all quarters, and 
claimants immediately besieged my dwelling, demand- 
ing instant payment. In the first place, there was the 
Confederate tailor, with a bill of $18,000 for my outfit 
as a Major General, who said his family was starving, 
and nothing but prompt liquidation would save them 
and him from famine. 

" Prompt liquidation is my rule," I replied, and 
immediately took four drinks. 

Then came the butcher with a similar bill for six 
months' supply of sole-leather steak ; then the grocer, 
the shoemaker, and so on to the end of the chapter. 
^' Something must be done for these mudsills of soci- 
ety," I said. " It is one of the evils of our existence, 
that laboring men have to eat and wear clothes ; and 
were I to suggest improvements in the formation of 
the Universej I would arrange it that the mudsills 
who wait upon the Southern aristocracy, should grow 
fat on air, and look with contempt on base pecuniary 

7* 



154 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 

means. I must at once pay these debts ; and the devil 
of it is, there isn't a dime in the treasury !" 

Then it was that light burst upon me from South 
Carolina, the great fountain of Southern Independence. 
Then it was that I remembered that on the 6th day of 
June, 1861, Governor Pickens paid all the debts of the 
South by a proclamation, declaring it to be treason for 
a Southerner to pay up in cash. Therefore I deter- 
mined to relieve my creditors, and pay all bills by a 
General Order ; and accordingly I issued the follow- 
ing: 

Headquaetees, Dep't of Madisonville, 

Madisonville, La., June 18th, 1863. 
General Order iVo. 6. 

Having come to life after consuming five gallons of Louisiana 
Rum, and Laving again assumed command of this Department, and 
liaving been pained at the sufferings of my deserving creditors, 
and annoyed by their impertinent supplications for payment, in 
order to relieve them and me by an ingenious Confederate device, 
it is hereby ordered and declared as follows: 

1. It shall be regarded as treason for the Major General com- 
manding this Department, or any of his staff, to pay any tailors' 
bills, butchers' bills, grocers' bills, promissory notes, or debts of 
any description whatever. 

2. Any person presenting a bill to the Major General command- 
ing this Department, or any member of his staff", or demanding 
payment for articles supplied, shall be guilty of misprision of trea- 
son, and shall be punished with death by hanging, and his estate 
and personal effects shall be confiscated to the personal use and 
possession of the Major General commanding this Department. 

By order of Majoe General James B. Macpheeson. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

The Reliahle GenUeman, ■ 

The Unhappy Cuss and myself then started for ISTew 
Orleans, to get the latest intelligence. Arriving at the 



THE EELIAELE GENTLEMAN. 155 

St. Charles Hotel, we put up for the night, when a 
man came np, and pnlling me to one side, asked what 
the news was from Madison\dlle. I replied that I had 
not the honor of his acquaintance, and that he would 
do better to mind his own business, and not exhibit 
any of his impertinence to a Major General of Confed- 
erate Yolunteers. 

Hereupon the fellow drew himself up with great dig- 
nity, until he looked quite tall, and said : 

"E. G. S. C. H." 

" I am familiar with every language," I replied, 
" known to articulate-speaking men, since the accident 
at the tower of Babel ; I understand all science and 
philosophy : I am, in fact, an Encyclopaedia of Useful 
Knowledge, revised and enlarged ; but I cannot, with 
all my learning, master those mystic symbols." 

"I am," said the offended fellow, "tlie Reliable 
Gentleman of the St. Charles Hotel !" 

" Come to my arms, sweet one !" I cried, clasping 
him to my heaving bosom in a loving embrace. " I 
regret that the Southern Source is not here to make 
your acquaintance ; for there is such a remarkable re- 
semblance in your personal appearance, impudent man- 
ners, and unblushing mendacity, that you might be 
mistaken for twins, or for one and the same person." 

The Reliable Gentleman bowed profoundly, and re- 
plied: "I am proud, General; you do me infinite 
honor. I am, so to speak, the Ears of the St. Charles ; 
for I hear every thing." 

" Judging from the enormous development of your 
acoustic organs," I replied, looking admiringly at his 
ears, " I am fully prepared to believe your statement." 



15G THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

Again tlie Reliable Gentleman bowed bis pleasure. 
" I am," be continued, " tbe Repository of all informa- 
tion ; notbing occurs witbout my knowledge ; I am, 
sir, a Boiling Caldron, wberein are tbrown all scraps 
of information, to be cooked up into reliable intelli- 
gence ; and as tbe wit dies of Macbetb tbrew poisoned 
entrails, fillet of snake, tongue of dog, adder's fork, and 
lizard's leg into tbeir caldron, so does every Big Liar 
bm'l bis reliable information to me. I button-bole 
every man I see ; I pump bim imtil be tells all be 
knows and all be don't know ; and I spread tbe news 
around town, adding sucb suggestions as will please tbe 
person to wbom I speak." 

" Dear Caldron !" I replied, kissing bim fondly, 
" you are tbe man I bave long desired to find. Come 
now, sit down, and tell me all tbat bas bappened during 
tbe last four or five weeks." 

You sbould bave seen tbe dignity and pride wbicb 
tbea. sat entbroned upon tbe countenance of tbe Boil- 
ing Caldron and Repository, as be drew bimself up, 
apparently believing tbat be was an India Rubber 
Man, and could stretcb bimself out as tall as Honest 
Old Abe, if be but put bimself to it. I own I never saw 
Wisdom until I looked upon tbat majestic countenance. 
Retiring to tbe front of tbe Rotunda, and placing our 
feet bigber tban our beads, tbe Reliable Gentleman 
proceeded to give me tbe following additional par- 
ticulars : 

" During tbe period you mention," be said, impres- 
sively, " tbe bloodiest battle ever fougbt on tbis Conti- 
nent bas taken place at Port Hudson. Sbilob, Fort 
Donaldson, Malvern Hill, were as a drop compared 



THE RELIABLE GENTLEMAN. 15Y 

to the red ocean of blood wliicli there flooded tlie 
land." 

'' Which whipped ?" I inquired. 

" The advantage was decidedly with onr arms," he 
replied; "but the victory was on the side of the 
enemy." 

The Reliable Gentleman was about to proceed with 
his narrative, when he suddenly espied an Intelligent 
Contraband on the opposite side of the street. Quicker 
than Olympian lightning he darted off, seized him by 
the button-hole, and showered upon him a series of 
questions in such rapid succession, that the Intelligent 
Contraband was almost paralysed. 

" Dey's at it, massa !" said I. C. 

" At what ?" inquired E. C. 

" Fightin' up dar !" was the reply ; " I'se hearn 'em !" 

Immediately the Keliable Gentleman rushed fran- 
tically through the streets, grabbing every man he met, 
and telling him that a bloody battle was in progress up 
the river ; that he had just seen a highly respectable 
gentleman direct from the battle-field, and that the 
slaughter was dreadful. Immediately the street corners 
were crowded by an excited populace, eagerly devour- 
ing the news, and repeating it with wild exaggerations. 
Soon the Intelligent Contraband approached me, and 
said : " Dar's a mistake, massa. Dat ar fightin' noise 
was dem niggers on the levee, pilin' up wood !" 

The Reliable Gentleman then returned, and resumed 
the history of events. " A negro regiment went in a 
thousand strong," he said, " and seven hundred of them 
fell dead on the first fire. The slaughter was terrible. 
One was caught and hung, and three escaped lame for 



158 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

life. Tliirty-iive Federal Generals were killed on the spot. 
Tlie slaughter was awful. Federal loss in two hours, 
seventeen thousand five hundred and two. Meantime, 
General Johnston concentrated a force of ninety-seven 
thousand in General Banks's rear, ready and willing to 
tear him in pieces. General Banks and stafl* were cap- 
tured, and Colonel Grierson, with his whole command. 
The slau2:hter was frio^htful. General Breckinridsre next 
made his appearance in General Banks's rear, with an im- 
mense force, and just before he arrived at Jackson, sent a 
nigger to General Banks, to let him know that he was in 
his rear. On the od of June, General Banks raised the 
siege, and, with his whole command, retreated to Baton 
Rouge, which place was subsequently captured by the 
enemy. The slaughter was appalling. Kirby Smith 
then crossed the river at Bayou Sara, moved towards 
Port Hudson, and got into General Banks's rear, with 
an immense force, sufficient to crush him, while Sibley, 
just returned from a flying visit to Texas, hung upon his 
flanks with a tremendous force. The slaughter was 
unparalleled. General Taylor, about this time, got in 
General Banks's rear. A portion of General Banks's 
forces were then sent to Yicksburg to reinforce General 
Grant. About this time a detachment of General 
Grant's army was sent to the aid of General Banks, 
from Yicksburg. The slaughter was tremendous !" 

Here the Reliable Gentleman put on a look of such 
awful wisdom and solemnity that I thought I should 
die. If my Idiotic Boy knew twice as much as that 
man, I'd make him Grand Blow-Master of the Con- 
federacy. He then looked aromid with his fingers on 
his lips, indicative of profound secresy, and making sure 



THE RELIABLE GENTLEMAN. 159 

that no one could overliear him, made the following 
confidential commnnication : " Every human being in 
Western Louisiana, white and black, old and young, has 
been put to death ! Every house, barn, shed, outhouse, 
tree, stump, shrub, cotton-bale, and combustible sub- 
stance of every name and sex, was burned by the torch 
of the incendiary ! The country is dejDopulated ; the 
human race in that part is extinct, and the inhabitants 
are suffering all the torments of famine !" 

Having delivered this crushing and reliable announce- 
ment, he started for the Bar-Room in great haste, and 
I left instantly for Madisonville, satisfied that the ser- 
vices of the Great Confederate Blower were not re- 
quired in New Orleans. 

Yours, sufficiently, 

James B. Macpheeson. 



160 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

Macpherson encounters the Cussed Fool oe Carondelet- 
STREET. — Betting on Yicksburo and Port Hudson. — 
Fourth of July Celebration at Madisonville, etc., etc. 

Note. — The Union citizens of New Orleans will not soon forget the 
unbounded joy inspired by the news of the capture of Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson. The rebels stoutly refused to believe that either place 
had fallen, and pronounced both reports " Yankee lies." They talked 
loudly, and offered to bet against odds ; but it was found that when 
brought to the test, they generally " backed out." 

Madisonville, La., 

July 18th, 1863. 

SiE : — As I was sitting in Jacobs's Picture Gallery, 
undergoing Photography, I chanced to cast my eyes 
upon the sidewalk, and there I saw a Cussed Fool, 
whom I knew at once w^as a good Confederate. There- 
fore la-iished out, without waiting to bid my friend 
good-day, or to pay my bill, and clasping him warmly 
by the hand, asked him w^hat he was driving at. 

" Betting," he replied. 

" What are you betting on ?" I asked him. 

" On Yicksburg," replied the Cussed Fool. 

" What's the matter with Yicksburg ?" I asked. 

" E'othing," he answered ; " and that's what's the 
matter with me. Come to my place in Carondelet- 
street, and I will show you something that will make 
your Confederate eyes gleam with joy." 

Walking to his place I was delighted to find that he 
was none of your poor white trash, but an out-and-out 



VICKSBURG NOT TAKEN BY GRANT. 161 

Southern aristocrat. We took four drinks of wine, and 
I told him it was very choice, but that for an honest, 
steady drink, Louisiana Rum could not be beaten. 

" ]^ow then," said he, " I am going to prove to you by 
the Confederate Arithmetic that Yicksburg is not taken, 
and that the dispatch published by the Yankee editor of 
The Era was a foul and infamous invention — a lie made 
out of whole cloth, for a bad purpose, which, it is sup- 
posed, was to affect the price of sugar and molasses, etc." 

" Proceed," I said, " for I am author of the Arithme- 
tic of which you speak." 

" In the first place," said he, " Yicksburg is impreg- 
nable. It is a Gibraltar, as I can prove to you by all 
the Southern papers that have published any thing on 
the subject." He then took down a file of Southern 
papers and pointed out eight thousand places in which 
Yicksburg was called " Gibraltar," and declared to be 
" impregnable." " ISTow," he continued, " the combined 
forces of France and Spain were imable to reduce Gib- 
raltar, and a place that is impregnable cannot be taken, 
according to my views. But when we come to analyse 
the question we find that the intrenchments of Yicks- 
burg are equal to twenty thousand men by the usual 
estimate, and this multiplied by fifty, according to Con- 
federate mathematics, would make the works equal to 
one million of men. One Confederate is equal to five 
Yankees, and this would bring it up to five millions of 
men. Then we will take the garrison, which amounts to 
forty thousand. This sum multiplied by fifty gives us a 
garrison of two millions, each of whom is equal to ^yg 
Yankees, and so, in fact, the garrison is ten millions 
strong. The garrison and the intrenchments together 



162 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

tliiis give US fifteen million* brave Sontliern patriots, all 
armed and ready to fight with desperate valor for Con- 
federate independence. That nearly eqnals the entire 
population of the free States, and if they cannot hold 
ont against Grant's army, then I will sell out and go to 
France." 

" You satisfy me," I replied, '' I am sure that Yicks- 
burg is not taken !" 

"I'll bet ten thousand dollars on it!" passionately 
cried the Cussed Fool. 

Just then a Yankee came up, and said: "Pll take 
that bet !" 

" What !" cried the Cussed Fool, in amazement. 

" I'll take the bet," he repeated, and at the same time 
put down ten one thousand dollar greenbacks. 

A smile of wonder passed over the face of the Cussed 
Fool, as he surveyed the Yankee from head to foot, as 
though he had been a curiosity in Barnum's Museum. 

Understanding his meaning, I proceeded to explain : 
" You Damned Yankee," I said, " you do not under- 
stand the principles of well-regulated Southern families. 
When a man says he will bet on the Confederacy or 
that Yicksburg is not taken, do you suppose he means 
it ? 'Not a bit of it ! It is an ordinance with the great 
doctrine of Blowing ; a doctrine which I preached in 
the Temple of Confederate Holiness in Camp street, 
and which is faithfully followed by every secessionist in 
I^ew Orleans." 

" That's true," said the Cussed Fool of Carondelet- 
street. " I'll not bet a dime ; put up your money ! 
But I know a man who will bet ten thousand dollars to 
one thousand that Yicksburg is not taken." 



PORT HUDSON NOT CAPTUEED. 163 

" Sliow him to me," said the Damned Yankee. 

We then walked down to Hawkins's, and there we 
found him. His face was red and swollen with blow- 
ing, and immediately I recognized him as the Great 
Sonthern Snorter. He Tinew it was a lie — he had seen 
a paper of a later date, and Yicksbnrg held out and was 
impregnable. He was ready to bet ten to one, nj) to 
any amount, that the Yankee dispatch was a lie. 

" Up to what amount, sir ?" inquired the Yankee. 

" Up to any amount you please !" cried he, at the 
same time sending out a peculi«.r blowing sound from 
his nostrils. 

" Say ten thousand," replied the Yankee. 

" Say any thing you please !" cried the Great Southern 
Snorter. 

" I say, then," replied the Yankee, " that I'll bet you 
ten thousand dollars against five thousand that Yicks- 
bnrg has been taken by General Grant !" 

" You must excuse me," said the great Southern 
Snorter, " I just remember that I have an imperative 
engagement. I have no time to talk with you, and, 
besides, if I should bet, most likely I would get ar- 
rested." The great Southern Snorter then walked ofi 
with a sad look, and all the Yankees laughed. 

Just then a fiendish newsboy came up, and thrusting 
papers in our faces, cried out : " Here's your Extra 
'EnA.—Fall of Port Hudson r 

" Its another Yankee lie !" cried the Cussed Fool ; 
" I'll bet ten thousand it is a lie ! I can prove that 
Port Hudson is impregnable and the Gibraltar of the 
Lower Mississippi 1" He then ran the sum over on the 
ends of his fingers, as a devout Catholic would count the 



164 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

beads, and I was pleased to see that lie had the whole 
Confederate Arithmetic at his tongue's end. " Garrison, 
10,000 by 50 is 500,000, by 5 is 2,500,000. Fortifica- 
tions, ditto is ditto; total number of Confederates, 
6,000,000 ! The whole Yankee army could not contend 
with one-tenth part of that number, and I hnow that 
Port Hudson is not taken !" 

How the Rebellion saved Property. 

We then walked off,- arm-in-arm, the Cussed Fool in 
a most thoughtful abstracted mood. 

" Fool," I said, " you are one of the best Confed- 
erates I have seen, and I now wish to ask what you and 
the rest of the Confederates got up this rebellion for V 

" To save om- property," he replied. 

Just then we observed a red auction flag in front of 
a most beautiful residence, and halting at the door, we 
discovered Tyler in all his glory, selling the furniture 
and every thing else at auction. "This," said the 
Cussed Fool, " is a sale by order of the Quartermaster ; 
the house and furniture were confiscated and sold by 
the United States, because the former owner was in the 
Confederate army. JS'ow see his splendid furniture, his 
mirrors framed with massive gold, his statuary of 
Carrara marble, his pianos, his library, all and every 
thing put up for sale by Yankees, and bid off by Yan- 
kee purchasers, and the fruits thereof going into the 
treasury of the United States, a government that every 
Confederate despises." 

" Where are his niggers ?" I asked. 

" Niggers !" shouted the Cussed Fool, while a flash 



FOUETH OF JFLY OEATION. 165 

ing glow of pain overspread his fine face ; " echo 
answers, Where? They have skedaddled, and refuse 
to return. They have enhsted or found employment 
elsewhere, and the proprietor thereof may say, in the 
words of the poet : ' Never again shall I behold 
thee !' " 

" And this is the way you saved his property by the 
rebellion !" I remarked. 

" Macpherson," said the Cussed Fool, " if the South- 
ern Confederacy should bust np, I'm going to France." 

" Go it," I replied, and whistled the new Confederate 
air of ^'Lee in Pennsylvania,^'^ 

July Uh — Magruder in New Orleans. 

On the 4rth of Jnly, the people of Madisonville as- 
sembled in a vast multitude aronnd my residence, and 
demanded an oration. The Idiotic Boy read the Con- 
federate Declaration of Independence, which, for want 
of a table, he rested npon the head of a nigger. I 
then mounted a soap-barrel, and proceeded to expatiate 
on the beauties of Southern Independence. " It is 
eighty-seven years ago to-day," I said, " that George 
Washington and John B. Floyd laid the foundations of 
the Southern Confederacy, by proclaiming to the na- 
tions of the civilised world the eternal and heaven- 
ordained doctrine of secession. But it took Jeflf. Davis 
and the Miles Legion to complete the noble work ; and 
it was not until the year 1861 that Truth, robed in 
light gray, and bearing a Palmetto tree in her hand, 
stepped forth from the shores of South Carolina, and 
clasping Jeff. Davis and A. H. Stephens in her arms, 



166 THE MAOPHEKSON LETTERS. 

carried them to Richmond*, there to found a dynasty 
more permanent than that of Denmark Yesey or Gov. 
Dorr, of Ehode Island." 

During the inspiring ceremonies of this great cele- 
bration, the Buzz Saw Division paraded under arms, 
and the Honest Jew peddled jewelry among the crowd. 
I then had the following General Order read aloud, 
and the vast assembly dispersed to their respectable 
abodes : 

Headqtjaetees, 
Department of Madisonvill , 
Madisonville, La., Julj 4:th, 1863. 
General Order No. T. 

1. The General Commanding felicitates the people of his De- 
partment on the recent brilliant Confederate Victories at Port 
Hudson and Vicksburg, and also in Pennsylvania and Tennessee. 
The splendid valor of our troops has demonstrated to the world 
that an impregnable Gibraltar cannot be taken, and that an in- 
vincible warrior cannot whipped. 

2. General Magruder, having captm-ed the city of New Orleans 
and Forts Jackson and St. Philip, will immediately report to me 
for duty at these headquarters. 

3. The city of New Orleans and vicinity are hereby annexed to 
the Department of Madisonville. 

By order of Major General James B. Maopheesont: 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

The Pliilosojpliy of Honesty, 

Before leaving the Cussed Fool, I asked him to de- 
fine Honesty, and he replied that it consisted of form- 
ing an opinion and sticking to it through thick and 
thin, in spite of facts or arguments. " The man," said 
he, " wdio lives up to his faith at the greatest sacrifice 
of comfort, money, and common sense, is the most 
honest man. Tell me who you think he is." 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HONESTY. 167 

I replied as follows : " I agree with your definition, 
and in my opinion Brigliam Young is the most honest 
and self-sacrificing man on this Continent. He be- 
lieves in Bigamy, and lives up to his creed by main- 
taining forty wives, thus depriving him of every 
earthly comfort to illustrate the great principle of 
his creed ! " 

Yours, heroically, 

James B. Macphekson. 



168 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 



• 



CHAPTEK XX. 

The Phantom Confederate; or, the Ghost of Madison- 

VILLE. 

(A True Story.) 

Madisonttlle, La., 

August 1, 1863. 

Sir: — It w{is in tlie full of the Moon, in the month 
called Julius by the Romans, and anno tertio de la 
Southern Confederacy, at the very witching hour of 
night, when churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes 
forth contagion to the world, that I might have been 
seen seated on a cypress stump, in the midst of a blasted 
heath, near the classical city of Madisonville, C. S. A., 
with a roll of plug tobacco in my hand, (a present 
from Gov. Lubbock, of Texas), and a Confederate can- 
teen of Louisiana Rum by my side. Thus sitting did I 
meditate upon that beautiful scene described by Yir- 
gil, in which ^neas, with his Trojan followers, as 
ragged and dirty as a Confederate army, was visited 
by Yenus, his good-looking mother, who came in the 
form of a huntress, with a commodious bow hanging 
from her white shoulders. O Dea cei^e ! cried the 
pious JEneas ; which, being translated into the Con- 
federate tongue, means : goddess for certain ! 
" Why," thought I, " if goddesses for certain, gods, 
apparitions, ghosts, hobgoblins, phantoms, and spec- 
tres visited the great warriors and philosophers of 
ancient days, why may they not also visit me, who 



THE niANTOM CONFKDERACY. 169 

snrj^ass all mortals both in the invincible strength of 
my arm, and the magnificent gifts of intellect ?" 

Scarcely had this sublime thonght turned itself 
over in my mind, when I heard a low sound floating 
upon the air, in tones as gentle as the JEolian Harp, 
and immediately I recognised it as a spiritual Con- 
federate snort. 

" Deus Oonfcederatus^ certe /" I exclaimed, " be 
thou a spirit of health or a Yankee damned ; bring 
with thee airs from heaven or blasts from Boston ; be 
thy intents wricked or charitable, thou comest in such 
questionable shape that I w^ill speak to thee ! I'll call 
thee — Macpherson, Confederate Royal Blower!" 

" I am,'' responded the as yet Unseen, " the Phan- 
tom Confederate^ or the Ghost of Ifadisonville, doomed 
for a certain space to walk the night, and by day con- 
fined to fast on mule's meat, until the surrender of the 
garrison shall ensure us Yankee rations ! List, list, Oh 
list ! — if ever thou didst thy dear Confederate love — " 

Macpherson — " Oh heaven ! " 

Phantom Confederate — "Then give me thy can- 
teen ; for now am I consumed by devouring thirst ! " 

Jlf«(?.— "Thirst?" 

P. C. — "Ay, thirst most dry, as in the best it is ; but 
this most dry, queer, and unnatural !" 

Ifac. — " Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as 
swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may swoop 
to my revenge ! " 

I then seized the canteen in a glow of generosity, 
placed the muzzle to my lips, and drank the contents 
at a single gulp, after wliich I gave him my canteen 
as he had requested. " Behold ! " I said to him, " the 

8 



170 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

generosity of a true Confederate. Thus did the Louis- 
iana Secesh Convention of 1861 gobble up the Custom- 
house, Mint, light-liouses, arsenal, and revenue cutters 
of the United States, while Honest Old Abe stood 
looking on, greedily begrudging the same ! Approach, 
dread corse ! that I may gaze upon thee ! Is it not 
enough that the whole Yankee race should be leagued 
together against me, that spirits must be summoned 
from the vasty deep, to disturb the repose of the great 
Confederate warrior ?" 

The ghost then approached, and, turning my eyes 
upon him, I beheld a being of majestic mien, dressed 
in a gray uniform, with a cadaverous countenance, and 
very dirty. His garments were tattered and torn in 
such a manner that whenever he stepped, the legs of 
his breeches released his limbs to the gaze of the mid- 
night Moon. 

" Wherefore," I asked, " presumest thou, thus ragged, 
to come into the presence of a Major General of Con- 
federate Yolnnteers ?" 

"Because," replied the ghost, "I haven't got any 
other clothes. I am the representative phantom of the 
Southern Confederacy. I was born in South Carolina, 
and have relatives in eleven States, besides 'New York 
city and Yallandigham's district." He then showed 
me a neck-tie with eleven stars in it, emblematic of the 
Bonnie Blue Flag, and wrought by the ladies of New 
Orleans. As he was showing this to me, he smote his 
head with pain, raised his eyes upwards and exclaimed. 
" Oh !" 

" What's the row, sweety ?" I enquired. 

" That," replied he, " is occasioned by a contraction 



FAREWELL TO THE CKESCENT CITY. 171 

of .the Federal lines ; I feel it squeezing the brains out 
of their natural channels." 

"Fear not," I answered, "you have not brains 
enough to suifer serious damage." 

Suddenly the Phantom began to dance with the 
wildest joy, while his whole ghastly face became lighted 
up with enthusiastic bliss. " Tell me," I said, " the 
cause of this sudden revulsion of feeling, which seems 
to have lifted you from the lowest sub-basement of 
Despair to the highest attic of Delight ?" 

"A great victory in Pennsylvania!" he replied. 
" The field of Gettysburg fills me with unspeakable 
happiness !" 

As he spoke, however, I noticed that one of his eyes 
had been gouged out, and one side of his face complete- 
ly smashed in, while a stream of blood was coursing to 
the earth. I inquired the meaning of this, and he re- 
plied it was the result of casualties at Gettysburg. 
" ISTo great victory," he said, " is ever won without ap- 
palling sacrifices of life and limb ; but Lee has succeed- 
ed in getting out of Pennsylvania, with a loss of only 
forty-five thousand men !" 

"Is that all?" I asked.' 

" Every bit, sure as you live, Macpherson !" cried 
the Confederate Ghost ; and, jumping up, I began to 
whistle the air of '' Molly ^ put the Ttettle on^^ and then, 
seizing each other's hands, w^e danced a compound 
double-shuffle for thirty minutes, in honor of Gettys- 
burg. This magnificent exhibition w^as interrupted by 
twinges of excruciating pain, which caused the Ghost 
to writhe and swear like a man with the gout. " What 
now ?" I enquired. 



172 THE :macpherson letters. 

" That disease," he answered, " is known in the Con- 
federacy as ''Roseorans in the Legs? Whenever a Ci>n- 
federate General gets that disorder, he starts off at a 
double-qnick, and cannot stop nntil he falls, out of 
wind. I've got the disease !" he cried, with a tone of 
terror. " I caught it in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. 
Corse those malarious Yankee dens of death and per- 
dition!" And so exclaiming, the Ghost started off, 
and ran so smartly that even I, fleet of limb as I am, 
could scarcely keep up. Over the blasted heath, 
through the silent streets of Madisonville, down the 
lane, and around the dilapidated hospitable abode, 
» ran the fleet-footed Ghost, with Macpherson at his heels. 
The Idiotic Boy jumped out of bed, and joined in the 
chase, without w^aiting to dress. In vain did we try to 
tree him — in vain to intercept him ! To run, run, run, 
now and forever, seemed to be the strong passion that 
possessed his Soul, and bound his body obedient to the 
Will. " Tullahoma !" he cried, as he leaped a wide 
ditch. " Chattanooga !" he screamed, as he jumped a 
fence, and fell on the other side, exhausted and appar- 
ently defunct. Raising him to his feet, I rubbed his 
head with a shoe brush until the left eye opened, his 
lips quivered, and he faintly whispered in my ear the 
w^ord "Bragg-adocioT" 

A Strange Phenomenon. 

ISTow it was that a most extraordinary phenomenon 
presented itself to my eyes. The Ghost, starting up, 
suddenly leaj)ed in the air like a bullet-pierced Indian, 
and fell to the earth in two pieces. Upon examination, 



EXTEAOKDINARY niENOMENON. 173 

I discovered that he had been clean split in two length- 
wise, as even and slick as though an immense razor, 
dropped with the accuracy of a guillotine and the 
power of Hercules, had severed him in twain. It ex- 
tended to the top of the cranium. One piece was, in 
short, the right half of a human body, and the other the 
left half. It now became doubtful whether conscious- 
ness would ever return; but return it did, and each 
separate part began to talk on its own hook, the left 
part saying his name was J. Davis, and the right that 
his name was Magruder Lubbock. The conversation 
of the t^vo was so incoherent and contradictory, it was 
evident neither side knew what the other was about, 
and both bled so copiously that I was in constant fear 
of instantaneous dissolution. I asked J. Davis to give 
me the name of this extraordinary disease, and he re- 
plied that it was called " Ojpen Mississippi Rimr^^ in 
the Confederacy. "When a man gets this disorder," 
he continued, " his case is incurable ; there is no possi- 
bility of ever again uniting his disjointed parts. I 
caught it at Yicksburg and Port Hudson, and there is 
no medicine in the world that can do me good !" 

Yisit to Neio Orleans, 

The Idiotic Boy and myself tore up a Confederate 
blanket, and with the pieces tied together the two parts 
the best w^e could, and all three of us started for ^ew 
Orleans in a butcher's cart. As if wonders would 
never cease, when we arrived in front of the St. Charles 
Hotel, I found that half of the Ghost had disappeared. 
On enquiring of the remaining half what had become 



174 THE MACPHEKSON LETTEES. 

of his fellow, lie replied that on drawing up before tlie 
Hotel, the right eje had espied General Weitzel stand- 
ing on the steps, and had immediately left for Texas, 
procuring a new crutch at Brashear City. 

Curiously did I watch the movements of the remain- 
ing half of the Phantom Confederate. He strayed leis- 
urely down to the Clay Monument, and informed the 
crowd that foreign intervention was now a fixed fact, 
and that a French fleet was about to be sent to J^ew 
Orleans, in obedience to the petition of our French cit- 
izens to the Emperor, through their consul here, to be 
protected against a negro insurrection that broke out 
in this city on the Fourth of July, and has been raging 
with terrible fury ever since. Having made all his 
friends in that neighborhood happy, by this announce- 
ment, he then w^alked up to Carondelet-street and visit- 
ed the Cussed Fool, who read Yallandigham's second 
letter aloud from the balcony, to an admiring audience. 
At this stage of the proceedings an Extra Eea an- 
nounced the total sujDpression of the great Confederate 
Eevolution in 'New York city, whereupon the Phan- 
tom put on a look of dismay, and disappeared through 
the back door, in a sudden and unaccountable manner. 
I have not seen him since. 

Let no one question the literal truth of my ghost 
story. I give the world the untarnished honor of a 
Confederate soldier and a chivalric Southern gentleman, 
that every word I have written is exact, literal truth. 
Yours, intermittently, 

James B. Macpherson. 



1Y5 



CHAPTER XXL 

Macpherson is Arrested for Assault and Battery. — He 
Expounds the Law of Responsibility. — He visits Port 
Hudson and Vicksburg. — He tests tiik Homceopathic 
Principle, and is Chased by the Devil, etc., etc. 

Note. — The Autlior takes tlie liberty of introducing an extract 
from a very complimentary introduction to the main portion of the 
following letter from the Indianapolis Journal, as explanatory of its 
spirit. 

" The responsibility of the ' Abolitionist ' for the beating Mac- 
pherson gave the ' nigger,' is exactly that which the Copperheads 
fasten upon the people of the North for the Southern rebellion. ' If 
you had only done what the South wanted,' they say, ' there would 
have been no war. Why didn't you get down on your knees and lick 
the dust, and take your kicking kindly, as we did, and wanted you to 
do? If you had, this unnatural and unconstitutional war would 
never have happened. You are responsible for it. The blood is all 
on your skirts, you mean, cowardly whelps.' Macpherson epitomizes 
the speech of Judge Perkins before the K. G. C.'s last winter ' to a 
dot.' The judge, himself, could not state its main point and spirit 
better." 

Madisonville, La.. 

August 22d, 1863. 

Sir : — As I was going along Pampart street, in E^ew 
Orleans, last Wednesday, I met a nigger on one side of 
tlie street and an Abolitionist on the other. " Abo.," I 
said, " yon go over and pull that nigger's wool." 

"What for Tasked Abo. 

" Because I tell you to," I replied. 

" It wouldn't be right," replied Abo. ; " the boy has 
done me no harm, and I shan't pull his wool." 

"If you don't do it," I replied, " I'll knock him down 
and pound him within an inch of his life." 



1Y6 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

" I shart^t do it," said ABo. ; " and I would like to 
know wkat he has done to yon." 

" N'othing," I replied, " but he's a nigger, and that's 
enough. If you'll pull his wool I'll let him off. But 
you won't, and if I whip him to death, you'll be re- 
sponsible for it, you vile inhuman, Abolition renegade ! 
Where's your humanity for the nigger ? Where's your 
philanthropy ? Where's your regard for human rights 
and liberties ? The owner and overseer are the only 
true friends of the nigger ! I implore you to save him 
from the awful mauling I'll give him ; but you 
won't, you infernal, hypocritical, sneaking, puritanical, 
drawling, damned Massachusetts, Boston, round-head 
Yankee Abolition fool !" Saying which, with a stream 
of fire flashing from both eyes, I rushed upon the darkey 
with the ferocity of a tiger, knocked him flat on his 
back, kicked his face into a jelly, and whipped him with 
a raw-hide until he wasn't able to stand on his feet, and 
a stream of blood ran from every vein in his body. 

"What's you gone an' done, massa?" said the un- 
happy wretch, when I let up on him. 

"I, you black numbskull!" I answered ; "/didn't 
do it : it was that sneaking Abolition nigger-thief that 
did it. I am your best friend and protector !" 

A policeman came up and arrested me for assault 
and battery. I was arraigned at the bar as a crimi- 
nal, and made the following address to the Court : 

Maopherson' s eloquent Plea in Defense. 

" May it please the Court : I do not suppose any thing 
I can say will alter your predetermined decision, or 



DEFENSE FOR BEATING THE NIGGER. 177 

your fixed resolution to offer me np as a sacrifice to 
Abolition fanaticism. As Socrates stood up to be tried 
bj a pack of heathen numbskulls, so do I stand up in 
the presence of Yankee nincompoops, who no more 
comprehend and understand the rules and regulations 
of Confederate Courts of Justice, than Jefi". Davis com- 
prehends the meaning of his own proclamations. And 
as Socrates fell a prey to the lubberheadedness of the 
popular Athenian tribunal, so shall I fail, with all my 
learning, to prevent this besotted Court from commit- 
ting Scandalum Magnatum — an offense against Con- 
federate prelates and dignitaries, which, under the old 
statutes of England, was no offense when committed 
against common folks, but a crime when done to big 
men like me. l^evertheless, if the truth can permeate 
your bestial intellects, allow me to call your attention 
to the law of this case. In the first place, I take the 
ground that the authority of Governor Moore and the 
Louisiana Legislature (which at last accounts was in 
session behind the Rocky Mountains), is in force in this 
city, and that the Black Code of Louisiana is binding 
upon Yankees who come into the Department of the 
Gulf. I also plead the usages and customs of the Con- 
federates in justification of my conduct ; and this 
brings me to a logical analysis of the case. The wit- 
nesses against me are two — a nigger and an Abolition- 
ist. Under the Black Code of Louisiana, a slave's 
testimony cannot be taken in a Court of Justice, and 
under the former precedents and usages of this great 
Confederate Commonwealth, an Abolitionist should be 
hung without trial. Therefore, the nigger's evidence 
is no evidence at all, and the Abolitionist has no busi- 



178 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 

ness here ; be had better go iTorth and sing psalms, and 
not venture into my Department, for if be does I'll 
bans' him hiofber than Haman or John Brown. I there- 
fore ask the Court to discharge me, send the nigger 
back to Confederate slavery, and hang the Aboli- 
tionist." 

The Court didn't see it, and so I continued my thrill- 
ing discourse: 

" In the second place, the Abolition Cuss is responsi- 
ble fur the pounding of the darkey ; since, had he 
pulled his wool as I requested- him to do, I should not 
have touched the black brute. But Horace Greeley is 
the author of this war, and Wendell Phillips got up the 
late riots in 'New York, as I can prove to you by an 
editorial in one of the New Orleans papers : and what 
can you expect of an Abolitionist any how ? They 
alone are responsible for the war and for slavery, and 
therefore I ought to be discharged^" 

In spite 'of this irresistible logic, which should have 
secured my instant release, the Court declined to let 
me off, and was about to pronounce sentence, when I 
jumped out of the second-story window, and made off 
for Madisonville so fast that the whole Department of 
the Gulf couldn't catch me. 

Macpherson visits Port S%idson and Yicksburg, 

I went up to Port Hudson and Yicksburg on the 
steamer Crescent, with a whole load of Yankee generals, 
colonels, congressmen, lawyers, and editors, and shed 
tears of inconsolable grief as I gazed upon the deserted 
Confederate rat-holes behind the parapets of Port Hud- 



APPARITION OF THE DEVIL. 179 

son, where we stopped to look at the works. 'Not 
believing that the place had been taken, I enquired for 
the headquarters of General Gardner, and was direct- 
ed to an old house that had many holes through the 
roof, and the balcony clean knocked off by Yankee 
shells. 

" Is General Gardner in V I enquired of a sentinel. 

" Yes," was the reply, " he is in jail." 

I knew then that Port Hudson was taken, and so 
telegraphed to the Cussed Fool of Carondelet street. I 
regret to add that my observations at Yicksburg were 
equally unsatisfactory. 



Similia Similibus Curantur. 

Heart-sick and discouraged at the drooping condition 
of the Confederate cause on the Mississippi, I returned 
to Madisonville, and devoted myself wholly to drink- 
ing. Having swallowed one demijohn of Louisiana 
Rum, I became beastly drunk ; and then it was that the 
great principle of Hahnemann — " like cures like" — ^burst 
upon my mind. If it be true, I thought, that like 
cures like, then w^ill another demijohn of the same de- 
structive liquid restore my mind and body to their ac- 
customed activity. Accordingly I applied the remedy 
in doses larger than those which had produced the 
disease, and it resulted in a perfect cure. I got over 
being drunk, but in doing so I got the delirium tre- 
mens, which lasted me for tw^o weeks, and confined me 
to my room. That is the reason I have not written 
any letters recently. 

I never suspected that the Devil was a hod-carrier 



180 THE MACPHEESON LETTEKS. 

until I was prostrated by this singular disorder ; but as 
soon as tbe thing was fairly on me, I saw him with a hod 
of bricks on the top of his head, grinning at me hideous- 
ly, and every now and then picking out a brick and 
pitching it at my head with unerring aim. I cut around 
the house because the De\dl was after me, but he was 
too fast, and hit me at every step. He was dressed in 
gray uniform, a good deal soiled and faded, and his 
shoes had burst out so that it showed his cloven foot. 
This performance continued at intervals for fourteen 
days, and whenever the Old Boy chased me around thq 
house, he hummed the following : 



DITTY, SUNG BY OLD SCRATCH AS HE CHASED MACPHER- 
SON WITH BRICKS. 

Dear Jeif. 's sick tliey say, 
But I mean lie shall stay 
On earth a wliile longer ; 
My cause will be stronger 
With his plotting you see ; 
So a while let him be ! 

Secession I like, 

It was a ten-strike ; 

My clerks are all busy — 

Writing names till they're dizzy 1 

Yet awhile, it is plaimed, 

Jeff.'s card-house shall stand! 

I like men that lie 
So much faster than I 
Ever conld, I believe. 
E'en in dealing with Eve ! 
Yes, the Rebs are a wonder, 
They lie so like thunder ! 

I love New York rioters 
And slung-shot proprietors. 
Who'll burn an Asylum ; 
Not yet wiU I " spile" 'em ! 



THE devil's ditty. 181 

I've suspended my orders 

To bring 'em into my borders ! 

The Copperhead faction 
Suits me just to a fraction, 
They follow Fernando 
And play to my hand so. 
And never pull triggers 
But in shooting poor niggers 1 

And as for that standing sham, 
Mr. Vallandigham, 
And New York Judge McCunn, 
There never was better one ; 
They preach habeas corj)us 
And blow like a porpoise ! 

Yet a while let 'em hobble, 
But soon will I gobble 
The whole, as guerillas 
Seize chickens or fillies, 
With greater momentum 
■ Than grape could have sent 'em ! 

Wlien lie finished up tlie performance of this dittj, 
he disappeared, and I arose clothed and in my right 
mind. 

Yours, occasionally, 

J. Btjchana]^^ Macpheeson. 



182 THE MACPHEKSON LETTEES. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

Macpherson is seized with the Newspaper Mania, and de- 
termines TO BECOME AN EdITOR. He DISSOLVES THE ArMY 

OF MaDISONVILLK, ETC., ETC. 

Note. — At the time tliis letter was published, a great number of 
newspaper schemes were on foot in New Orleans. No less than three 
new dailies were in contemplation, beside one Avhich had actually 
been started. 

:MADISONYILIiE, LA., 

Oct. 9, 1863. 
See : — RetTirning from the Convention of General 
Magruder and the kicked-ont Governors, recently held 
in Texas, I stopped in New Orleans on mj return. But 
I soon discovered that a malignant and destructive con- 
tagion had broken out in that city, which, in its devas- 
tating ravages, spared neither age, sex, color, nor condi- 
tion. From the high in position down to the lowest 
son of a gun, it took all, sparing none in its onward and 
mii-aculous progress. As the hot and noxious simoom 
sweeps over the burning sand, while a thick sulphm-ous 
exlialation rises from the earth, first in hurried gyra- 
tions, and then ascends the air and covers the whole 
heavens — while hissing and crackling noises are heard, 
and animal life perishes as though touched by Greek 
fire, even so had this pestilent epidemic seized with an 
unyielding grasp every one who ventured within the 
circle of its magic influence. The millionaire was taken 
in the midst of luxury and splendor ; the lawyer in his 
office ; the literati in garrets ; fair women fell its vie- 



A MALIGNANT CONTAGION. 183 

tims ; even a Confederate, fresli from Fort Jackson, was 
stricken before lie had been three days from prison. 

My first impulse was to skedaddle, as unceremoni- 
ously as the Reliable Gentleman of the St. Charles Hotel 
did, when he heard there was a case of yellow fever in 
town. But learning that the disease seldom proved 
fatal, except to the pocket, I determined to take my 
chances, especially as I had no money, and was, in fact, 
a travelling object of charity. But I had not been in 
the city two hours before I w^as seized with a violent 
and uncontrollable desire to start a daily newspaper, or 
to get an interest in one already started. It came upon 
me like a flash of lightning hurled by the hand of Jupi- 
ter, when he darts the destructive bolts from the summit 
of divine Olympus ; and it worked upon my mind in a 
manner so violent that I soon fell sprawling on the 
floor, as flat as one of Sylvanus Cobb's novels. The 
crash of my fall hastily brought a friend to my side. 
" Great Heaven !" he exclaimed ; '' Macpherson has got 
the contagion ! A physician, quick ! for the love of 
Confederate intellect !" A distinguished physician soon 
appeared, felt of my bounding pulse, and began to 
question me as to the symptoms of the disorder. 

" This desire to start a newspaper," he began — " have 
you ever had it before ?" 

" Only in slight degree," I answered him. " For 
some time I have had it in my head to put the Idiotic 
Boy in editorial charge of a paper ; for the manner in 
which the press in 'New Orleans is conducted, has con- 
vinced me that he would be a bright and shining light 
among his cotemporaries. But that was as nothing 
compared to the desire which I now feel. A wild, 



IS J: THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

restless fatality, an irresistible purpose, consume me, 
as if one of Gillmore's batteries had been opened, 
sweeping Greek Fire through my bones." 

" There is no doubt as to what ails you," said the 
good Doctor, shaking his head gravely; "you have 
caught the prevailing distemper, known in medical 
parlance as the JS^ewspaper Mania ! " 

"Is there no remedy ! " I asked. 

" Only one that I know of," he answered. 

" And what might that be ? " I inquired. 

" To pay the bills of some newspaper establishment 
for a month," he replied, " receiving in return the re- 
ceipts of the concern, has, so far as my observation 
goes, proved an effectual remedy for all complaints of 
this nature." 

" Is the remedy severe ? " I asked. 

"Alas! yes," he answered; "none but millionaires 
can indulge in it ; and unless you have plenty of 
metal, your case is hopeless." 

I therefore hurried back to Madisonville, hoping that 
a change of climate and the quiet repose of my home, 
might restore my mental equilibrium ; or that, con- 
certing measures with the Honest Jew, I might gratify 
the terrible desire that now burned to the very mar- 
row of my bones. 

Imagine my horror, therefore, when on reaching my 
abode, I found that the very disorder from which I 
had hoped to escape, was raging with tenfold fury in 
Madisonville. The Idiotic Boy, first among the vic- 
tims, had already started a daily, and was astonishing 
the human race with the wisdom and genius of his 
leaders. Three secret prospectuses were in circulation 



THE NEWSPAPER PROJECT. 185 

for rival sheets ; and even the military had not escaped 
the distemper. The whole Buzz-Saw Division had 
turned job-printers, and every stationer and bookseller 
in town was printing posters. I asked the Honest 
Jew, how much the average profits of a newspaper 
were ; and he answered with glowing eyeballs, that a 
daily newspaper made a hundred thousand dollars 
every three days; and that it was his intention to set 
two running at once, in a large building fronting on 
two streets — a newspaper at each end. Both, he said, 
could be printed from the same form, and as the public 
would never read either, they would not discover the 
base deception. 

"The press of Madisonville is already large," I be- 
gan ; " its papers, in fact, are more numerous than its 
readers ; and if we are to establish a new concern, or 
seize an old one, we must advocate some principle that 
nobody believed, or ever can believe ; so that ours will 
be the exclusive organ of that Idea, and meet with no 
competition." 

" Yat brinciple do you call dat ? " enquired the Is- 
raelite. 

" That," I replied, " is yet to be evolved from the 
Mammoth Brain of him now before yon ; it is a ques- 
tion of intellect that I alone can solve." 

"I have him ! " said the Jew. 

"What is it? "I asked. 

" 1^0 brinciple ! " he replied, with a look of triumph. 
" Brinciple be tampt ! Bublish a baper mit no brin- 
ciple at all." 

But the great Idea, I saw, was Consolidation. I 
would buy or seize all the newspaper establishments 



186 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS, 

in Madison ville ; all their "presses, all their types. I 
would then construct a building of gigantic propor- 
tions, eighteen stories high and five thousand feet 
front on four streets, and into this magnificent temple 
of art should be put all the materials of all the otfices 
in this city ; and my great mind and overshadowing 
genius should be the ruling and guiding spirit of the 
sj^lendid whole. All rival factions would then bow to 
me, and all give me their patronage. The lion should 
lie down Avith the lamb, the Confederate with the 
Yankee, the tiger with the jackass, the elephant with 
the baboon, and the greatest man of the age should 
lead them. Filled with this Idea, even as my insides 
were filled with liquid Rum, I arose and issued the 
following : 

Crciieral Ordei* No. 9. 

Headqttaeters, 

Department of Madisonville, 
Madisonville, La., Oct. 1st, 1863. 

The General Commanding announces that the Army of Madison- 
ville is hereby dissolved. The men have fought bravely without 
pay, and I should consider it an insult to their pride and patriot- 
ism to offer them money in this late stage of their protracted de- 
privations and sufferings. They will, therefore, be immediately 
mustered out of the service without further compensation than the 
consciousness of having done their duty, and of having served 
under the greatest warrior of ancient or modern times. The 
money which would have been paid to the troops under different 
circumstances, will be turned over to the Honest Jew, who will 
disburse the same in accordance with verbal instructions from 
these Headquarters. Soldiers of the Department of Madisonville ! 
your swords shall be beaten into printing presses, and your bay- 
onets into ink-rollers ; no more shall you grapple with bloody 
foes, but you shall stick type and do job printing. But, under all 
circumstances, you will be cheered by the grateful reflection that 
your General will retain his rank and pay, whether sweating 



MACPIIKKSON's editorial PllOGKAMME. 187 

blood on the field of carnage, or swaying the destinies of the hu- 
man race with the editorial pen. 

By command of Majoe General James B. MAOPnERSON. 

The Idiotic Boy, Chief of Staff. 

Thus, Consolidation and the downfall of all rivalry 
is the grand Idea that now possesses me. I shall ex- 
change the gray gory garments of war for the editorial 
robe, and shall make my paper the organ of every prin- 
ciple and sentiment known to mankind. I shall take 
one position in one article and follow it immediately by 
another, taking a directly opposite view ; and thus will 
I be able to conciliate all conflicting oj^inions and in- 
terests. Farewell the plumed troop and the big wai-s 
that make ambition virtue ! Oh, farewell the braying 
mule and the shrill trumpet, the ear-piercing life, the 
Confederate flag, and all the pride, pomp, and circum- 
stance of glorious war — except the pay ! And oh, you 
mortal Confederate engines, whose rude throats the im- 
mortal Jove's dread clamors poorly counterfeit. Fare- 
well ! — Macpherson's occupation's changed ! 
Yours, undeviatingly, 

James B. Macpheeson-. 



188 THE MACPHEKSON LETTERS. 



CHAPTEK XXIII. 

Macpherson, disgusted with the Newspaper Business, re- 
solves TO acquire Office and Civil Renown. — The 
Restoration of Civil Government in Louisiana. — Mac- 

PHERSON is elected GoVERNOR OF THE StATE, ETC., ETC. 

Note. — The pro-slavery party of Louisiana, hoping to retain the 
" divine institution" in New Orleans and other parishes where it was 
not abolished by the President's Proclamation, formed a scheme to 
hold an election on the second day of November, 18G3, the day fixed by 
the old Constitution, for a Governor, Congressmen, State officers, and 
a Legislature. Of course there could have been no legality or au- 
thority in such an election, since it had not been called by the Gov- 
ernor, or countenanced in any manner by the military authorities. 
The State officers who were in Louisiana previous to the outbreak 
of the rebellion, had deserted their posts and joined the Confed- 
eracy ; and the only government in Louisiana, since the occupation 
of New Orleans by the United States forces, has been the military 
government. A few Co]3perheads — perhaps twenty, all told — met 
secretly in Masonic Hall, and nominated candidates for the different 
offices. Their proceedings and designs were kept profoundly secret, 
as long as possible. They determined that on the Wednesday pre- 
ceding the election, they would issue a call for a mass-meeting, to 
be held the next Saturday evening, to ratify their nominations. In 
other words, the people were to have five days' notice before the 
election. The matter "leaked out," however, a little sooner than 
the conspirators intended to have it. But on the Wednesday pre- 
ceding the day fixed for the election, the Masonic Hall clique issued 
an "Address to the People of Louisiana," calling upon them to con- 
vene at the usual places of voting, the next Monday, and elect civil 
officers, and assuring them there was " nothing to prevent" it ; that 
the miUtary would not interfere, and that this course would meet the 
approval of the national government. " On the second of November, 
then," said the address, " go to the polls and cast your votes as usual ; 
your chosen Congressmen will take their seats on the first Monday of 
December ; your chosen Legislators will meet on the third Monday 
of January and organise ; your State officers will on the same day be 



MACPHEESON IN THE NEWSPAPEIl BUSINESS. 189 

inaugurated, and thus the wheels of civil government will be once 
more set in motion in our State, and we trust prosperously and for 
the benefit of mankind. Fail to make this little eflbrt, and your last 
opportunity for renewing Civil State Government, in accordance 
with legal provisions, will fruitlessly pass, with the probable de- 
struction of Republican Institutions. * * * 

" Let us arise, then, and go forth and perform the imperative and 
sacred duty of electing the ofiicers of a Civil Government in Louisi- 
ana, on Monday, the second day of No'cember, the time appointed by 
our laws ; and if we fail, it may be the last time we will have the 
power of acting as freemen." 

The purpose of this movement, it was well understood, was to re- 
stolre the infamous Black Code of Louisiana — a code most barbarous 
in its provisions — and to re-establish slavery on its former founda- 
tions. But the scheme, as soon as it was exposed, subjected its 
authors to such ridicule and contempt, that they " backed out" of it, 
and published an announcement that the election would not be held, 
since it was feared that the people would not vote ! But the end it 
seems was not yet ; for the gentlemen who were nominated by Masonic 
Hall, had the assurance to claim that they were entitled to exercise 
the offices for which they were named, on the ground that had the 
election teen held, they would have received a majority of the votes ! 
Nearly all the men nominated by Masonic Hall for State officers 
were residents of New Orleans. Some of them were notorious for 
their rebel proclivities ; some had signed or voted for the Ordinance 
of Secession, in the Convention of 1861. 

Madisonville, La., 

October 30th, 1863. 

Sir : — As tlie Devil, after the great secession move- 
in eiit described by Milton, was hnrled headlong flam- 
ing from the ethereal sky, with hideous rnin and com- 
bustion, down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
in adamantine chains and penal fire, so had I been 
pitched heels over head from the lofty position I once 
occupied, and was nowhere. The few days' experience 
I had in the newspaper business came near worrying 
the life out of me. Every ^yq minutes during the 
night, my door-bell would ring furiously, and some 
new candidate for newspaperial fame and wealth would 



190 THE MACPHEESOK LETTERS. . 

present himself, witli proiDositions to buy me out at 
half price or to steal the concern outright, until finally 
in disgust I told the Honest Jew to take the whole con- 
cern and go to the devil with it, or anywhere else, pro- 
vided he would give me an hour's sleep. 

Having disbanded the army of Madisonville, and the 
Buzz-Saw Division having all turned job printers, I 
have felt my powers sensibly decline. I turned my at- 
tention to philosophy, which is a good thing in its way ; 
but even Socrates w^as as poor as a Confederate pack- 
horse, and was abused for it by his wife. In short, phi- 
losophy don't pay bills. Therefore, having lost military 
power, I determined to acquire enough civil grandeur 
to make up for it ; and I planned a grand scheme for 
inaugurating civil government in Louisiana. Secresy 
was very important, since the plot was one so wise that 
the lubberly-headed masses of the people could never 
comprehend or aj)preciate it. Therefore, I called a 
meeting of tlie faithful in the attic of my dilapidated 
hospitable abode, to lay before them the splendid con- 
ception that had sprung from my Mammoth Brain. 
Tlie better to ensure secresy, a grip and pass- word were 
adoj)ted. The grip consisted of a grab at the nasal or- 
gan, and the pass-word was : " Treasury P The fol- 
lowing distinguished statesmen were present : . 

James Buchanan Macpherson, the Confederate Phi- 
losopher and Southern Blower ; his son, and Chief of 
Staff, the Idiotic Boy ; his Quartermaster, the Honest 
Jew ; his Commissary, the Unhappy Cuss ; his Chief 
of Cavalry, the Solitary Horseman ; his Chief of Artil- 
lery, the Inconsolable Thug ; his Chief of Signal Corps, 
the Southern Source ; his Judge Advocate, the Weep- 



mAUGUKATTNG CmL GOVEENMENT. 191 

ing Orphan ; his Aids-de-Camp, the Macedonian, the 
Reliable Gentleman, and the Cussed Fool of Carondelet- 
street. 

It was a tonching sight, and one calculated to bring 
tears to the eyes of an alligator, to look upon this as- 
sembly of fallen greatness. Every man of them had 
enjoyed a fat office under me in the days of my martial 
glory ; but now they looked like a set of darned loafers, 
with lank jaws and seedy breeches. They reminded 
me of the congregation of registered enemies that Satan 
got around him in the infernal regions, after his repulse 
by the heavenly army. I arose and addressed them 
as follows ; 

MaGjpJiersoTi' s Address. 

" Fellow-citizens of Louisiana ! "We address you as 
loyal to the Government." [A voice : " Which Govern- 
ment ?"] Macpherson : '' ISTone of your d — d business, 
you hounds ! Wait till my scheme is put into execu- 
tion, and then learn what it is by the results. As loyal 
citizens you have duties to perform to me and your- 
selves, your State and country. We are in danger, and 
immediate action is required. The fact is, you are like 
me in one respect — you all want office ; and the want 
of civil government in our State can, by a proper effort 
on your part, soon be supplied, under laws and a Con- 
stitution formed and adopted by yourselves, in a time 
of profound peace. It is made your duty as well as 
your right, to meet at the usual places, and cast your 
votes for me as Governor, and for yourselves to fill the 
best offices in the State. Heretofore in our histoiy the 
direction of these elections has been had by legal 



192 THE MACPHEKSON LETTEES. 

agents ; but tlie legal agents now have no anthority of 
any sort, and, therefore, we will take charge of the 
whole busmess ourselves. We held a State election in 
1861, and nothing has since happened that amounts to 
any thing. We promise you that the military will not 
interfere, there being none in this part of the country ; 
and we think we can assure you that your action in 
this respect will meet the approval of the National Gov- 
ernment." [A voice : " Which I^ational Government ?"] 
Macjplierson : " Dry up, you vagabond ! We urge upon 
you action in this important crisis. It will convince 
the world of our wish and determination to manage the 
offices of the State and the public revenue in the man- 
ner most satisfactory to ourselves ; it will encourage all 
desirous of making a splurge in other States, and will 
have a tendenc}^ to cause the soldiers to throw down 
their arms, and give us our own way, overawed by the 
civil grandeur that will surround us. Go to the polls 
then ! Your Governor will assume his constitutional 
functions, and the Legislature will convene in Madi 
sonville forthwith ; your Congressmen will take their 
seats as soon as they can find them." [A voice : " In 
Washington or in Richmond ?"] 

Macpherson: "Silence, you low-lived scoundrel! 
It is our intention to assume our old status, in order 
that we can clear the State of Yankee office-holders, 
and whip our niggers under our own vine and fig-tree, 
with none to molest or to make us afraid. Let us 
arise, then, and go forth and perform the imperative 
and sacred duty of electing ourselves to office ; and if 
we fail, it may be the last time we shall have the 
power of acting as freemen — that is, thrashing the 



PARCELLING OUT THE CANDIDATES. 193 

niggers and spending the public fund according to our 
own discretion ! " 

At the conclusion of this able and patriotic address, 
a burst of applause greeted me like the roar of battle. 

The Southern Source then arose, and stated that he 
had just had an interview with Jeff. Davis, and had 
been assured of his approval and support. The Em- 
peror of France had also promised a land and naval 
force to co-operate with the new governor. [Applause.] 

The Idiotic Boy was loudly callfed for, but declined 
to speak, as he was about to be a candidate for the 
suffrages of his fellow-citizens for one of the highest 
offices in their gift. Modesty, he said, prevented him 
addressing the audience ; but he nevertheless went on 
and spoke two columns, saying that the facts of seces- 
sion and rebellion had changed nothing, except to turn 
the offices over to the present company, which he be- 
lieved to be a good thing. In conclusion, he expressed 
the hope that the advertising and job work necessary 
to be done, would be given to the paper with which it 
was well known he was connected. [Hisses by the 
Honest Jew and other publishers.] I interfered, say- 
ing, that the newspaper business had played out, and 
had nothing to do with political questions. 

The Honest Jew said : " Pefore I gives mine subbort 
of der measure, I vish to know if I be made Dreasurer. 
You makes me Dreasurer, I zteals the bublie funds 
and tivides mit you vun half the brofit !" [Applause, 
and the nomination of the Honest Jew as State Treas- 
urer by acclamation.] 

The meeting then proceeded to nominate candidates, 
when the following ticket was agreed to : 



194 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

STATE ELECTION. 

For Governor: 

James Buchanan Macpherson, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Lieutenant Governor : 

The Idiotic Boy, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Secretary of State : 
The Unhappy Cuss, 

Of Madisonville. 

For State Treasurer : 
The Honest Jew, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Auditor : 
The Reliable Gentleman, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Attorney General : 
The Weeping Orphan, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Superintendent of Public Education : 
The Southern Source, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Congress — Madisonville District : 
The Cussed Fool, 

Of Madisonville. 

For Congress — State at Large : 
The Solitary Horseman, 

Of Madisonville. 

It was suggested tliat Madisonville was not properly- 
represented on the ticket. We had the ballots printed 



GEAND RATIFICATION MEETING. 195 

immedia,tely, and to each one was attached the fol- 
lowing : 

Notice. — Gentlemen wishing to become members of the State 
Senate and Legislature, can be accommodated by paying their 
initiation fee and becoming members of the patriotic association 
that manufactured the above ticket. As soon as the party is large 
enough, a candidate will be named for each district in the State. 

J. B. M., Governor 

Grand jRatificatiorh Meeting. 

It was voted unanimously that time was of great 
consequence, and that the sooner we were elected the 
surer we would be of our offices. Wishing, however, 
to give the lubberly-headed people a fair show, we called 
a grand Ratij&cation Meeting, to be held at Merritt's 
Hotel, in MadisonviUe, the next morning at ^n^ o'clock. 

The smi was not up when the assembly convened, 
but that made no difference. On motion, James B. 
Macpherson, of MadisonviUe, was chosen President ; and 
the Idiotic Boy, of MadisonviUe, was appointed Secre- 
tary. A list of Yice-Presidents was then appointed as 
follows : The Unhappy Cuss, of MadisonviUe ; the 
Honest Jew, of MadisonviUe ; the Reliable Gentleman, 
of MadisonviUe ; the Weeping Orphan, of MadisonvUle ; 
the Southern Source, of MadisonviUe ; the Cussed Fool, 
of MadisonviUe; the Solitary Horseman, of Madi- 
sonviUe. 

The audience consisted of the Inconsolable Thug, of 
MadisonviUe, the bar-keeper of Merritt's MadisonviUe 
Hotel (drunk), and thi*ee niggers of MadisonviUe, sleep- 
ing on the sidewalk. 

" Fellow-citizens of Louisiana !" I said, " I am thank- 



196 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

M for the honor conferred upon me, in being called to 
preside over the deliberations of this great assembly. 
I am happy to greet my fellow-citizens of Louisiana 
upon this auspicious occasion. [Three cheers by the 
Inconsolable Thug, who knocked down the barkeeper, 
by way of a ' tiger.'] Our principles are well known. 
"We go for restoring the State as it was before the Yan- 
kee brutes came down here and took 'New Orleans ; and 
we believe that the offices of a State belong to the 
great men of the State. If elected to the office of Gov- 
ernor by the suffrages of the people, I shall perform the 
duties of the office in a manner perfectly satisfactory 
to myself." [Applause on the platform.] 

The Idiotic Boy suggested that the ticket had been 
enthusiastically endorsed by the people of Louisiana, 
and that the election ought to come off at six o'clock the 
same morning. We therefore adjourned to the usual 
places of holding elections, and in fifteen minutes there- 
after the polls closed. The result was proclaimed 
in a loud tone of voice, and it was found that every 
candidate nominated in the attic had been elected with- 
out opposition. 

The only disturbance at the polls was occasioned by 
the Inconsolable Thug, who rolled up his coat and 
pulled off his sleeves, and fought the barkeeper and 
the niggers for the drinks. 

At seven o'clock a. m. of the same day, I was solemnly 
inaugurated Governor of the State of Louisiana. The 
ceremonies were performed at Merritt's Hotel, Madi- 
sonville. A high stool was arranged in front of the 
bar, with a decanter and glass within reach ; and on 
this stool I took my seat, looking as wise as though I 



MACPHERSON AS GOVERNOR. 197 

had had my head soaked in sage tea for four months ; 
while on my left was the Lieutenant-Governor elect and 
the other State dignitaries. The oath was administered 
by the barkeeper, after which I delivered the following 
Inau2:ural Address : 

" Fellow-citizens of Louisiana ! It is customary on 
occasions of the solemn inauguration of the Chief 
Magistrate of the State, that his predecessor should be 
present. But in the present instance I am authorised 
to say that it is not convenient for Governor Moore to 
attend. I beg leave to say that I shall pursue the 
same policy that he did, and I sincerely pray that my 
gubernatorial career may be crowned with results no 
less brilliant than those he realised." 

Amid the plaudits of the crowd, I was then escorted 
to the D. H. Abode, now become the Executive Man- 
sion, amid salvos of artillery from a hundred-pound 
wooden howitzer. I rode on a triumphal horse-car 
decorated with old newspapers and drawn by eight 
jackasses. The officers of State having been sworn in, 
I issued the following : 

PROCLAMATION 
TO THE PEOPLE OF LOUISIANA. 

I, James Buchanan Macpherson, having been unanimously 
elected Governor of the State of Louisiana, hereby issue this my 
Proclamation, and decree as follows : 

1. That the State House at Baton Rouge having been burned 
down, the seat of Government is removed to Madisonville, where 
the Legislature will convene at one o'clock this afternoon. 

2. The salaries of all public oflacers are hereby doubled, and a 
year's salary shall be drawn in advance. 

3. The public debt having increased beyond the capacity of the 



198 THE MACPHEESON LETTERS. 

treasury, the same is hereby cancelled, and the State Treasurer 
will rub out and begin anew. 

4. The Confederate Arithmetic is hereby designated as the offi- 
cial mathematical system, and the Superintendent of Education 
wUl see that none other is taught. 

5. Civil government having now been firmly established in the 
whole of Louisiana, the United States army is directed to pack up 
and leave by the next steamer for the ISTorth ; and every damned 
Yankee found in the State after the second day of November, will 
be hung to a lamp-post. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set the seal of the State 
of Louisiana, on the twenty-eighth day of October, Anno 
Domini one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of 
the Southern Confederacy, three. 

By the Governor. 

The IJNHAPrY Crss, Secretary of State. 

I will now conclude my epistle, expressing the hope 
that the life of the undersigned may be prolonged to 
an unnatural extent, and that he may. be re-elected at 
the expiration of his present term. 

Yours, Gubernatorially, 

James Buchanan Macphekson. 



REBELS WAI^TING OFFICE UNDER MACPHEKSON. 199 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

The Governor is besieged by- Office-seekers. — The inge- 
nious Method by which he dispersed the Mob. — The 
True Southern Patriot, and why he would not accept 
Office. — The Idiotic Boy chastised. — The Governor 
MAKES A Pilgrimage to Richmond. — The full and au- 
thentic History of the Congressional Career of the 
Cussed Fool and the Solitary Horseman, etc., etc. 

Executive Mansion, 
Madisonville, La., 

Dec. 31st, 1863. 

Sir : — Since my elevation to tlie lofty position of 
Governor of Louisiana, every Confederate within five 
thousand miles, of Madisonville has applied to me for 
an office. I was delighted beyond measure to see the 
amount of patriotism which these faithful sons of chiv- 
alry possessed. Every one of them, I found, had first 
raised the Confederate flag in E"ew Orleans, and had 
been last to pull it down when the infernal Yankees 
took possession of that impregnable city. Every one 
of them had suffered tenfold persecution, and the ago- 
nies of purgatorial punishment for the holy cause of 
Southern rights ; and there was not one who did not 
declare that his soul would swell with gratitude, if I 
would point out to him a method in which he might 
immediately spend the remnants of his fortune and 
pour out his heart's blood for the sacred Confed- 
eracy. 



200 THE MACPHERSON LETTERS. 



How the Governor got rid of ''em, 

*' Sweet Confederate patriots !" I said, addressing 
them from the roof of the house ; " you all want office. 
I sympathise with your honorable ambition, and I will 
give every one of you a position [loud shouts of 
applause on all sides] on certain terms. [Many voices : 
' Give us the terms. Governor !' and, ' We accept.'] 
Don't be in a hurry about accepting, you hounds ! un- 
til you hear the conditions. You are all anxious to 
serve the Confederacy in the most effectual manner. 
[Cries of ' yes,' ' that's so,' et cetera.] You would 
willingly lay down your lives, your fortunes, and your 
sacred honor on the glorious altar of Southern Inde- 
pendence. [Loud cries of ' yes,' and ' bully for the 
Gov. !'] Well, sweet ones ! you shall be accommo- 
dated. [Cheers and shouts for fifteen minutes.] 
Every one of you shall have a posish under my admin- 
istration, if you will enlist in the Confederate army for 
three years or during the war, unless sooner dis- 
charged !" 

A hum of voices was heard on all sides, like that 
described by Homer, when the Greeks issued from 
their black ships to pounce upon Priam. It grew 
fainter and fainter, until it fell upon the ear like strains 
of distant music, and then it died out altogether. On 
looking about me, I discovered that the vast assembly 
of patriots had disappeared. Every mother's son of 
'em had skedaddled ; not one has since asked for an 
office or shown his head in Madisonville. 



IDIOTIC BOY CKITICISING THE LETTERS. 201 



The True Soitthern Patriot, 

I then made the acquaintance of the True Southern 
Patriot ; the man who didn't want office. He was a 
man of meek manners, and said he only came to assure 
me of his supreme admiration of my great abilities, 
and that he was mine respectfully until death should 
us part. I asked him if he would like to go to Con- 
gress, whereupon he seemed stricken with horror. 
^' ISTo," he replied, " the time of my political ambition 
has passed ; nothing on earth would induce me to 
accept an office." 

On questioning him, I found that he already held 
four offices under the Confederate Government ; and 
to this fact I attributed his reluctance to take a posish. 

The Idiotic Boy chastised. 

I have prepared my letters to The Era for 23ublica- 
tion in book form, and the manuscript has already 
gone on to tbe publisher in JSTew York. It will be the 
greatest work that ever emanated from the human in- 
tellect, and as a history of Confederate Glory will 
equal in truthfulness the story of Sinbad the Sailor. I 
gathered all the letters together in a big pile, and 
taking up a pair of scissors, remarked to the Idiotic 
Boy that I should cut from them every part not worth 
printing. 

'' If you do that," replied the Imbecile Youth, 
" your book will not make two pages." 

I flogged him like Satan for that s]3eech. But wlien 



202 THE MAOPHEESON LETTERS. 



I caine to look over the letters, I found lie was alto- 
gether too near the truth, and 
no-aiu within an inch of his life. 



gether too near the truth, and for this I flogged him 



ITie Governor's PilgHmage to JRiclimond. 

As the faithful Mohammedaus make a pilgrimage 
to Mecca for the good df the soul, so did I start for 
Kichmond in the search of political power. It will be 
remembered by the readers of my former able produc- 
tion, that at the time I was elected Governor of Loui- 
siana, a whole set of State officers was chosen, and that 
the Cussed Fool and tlie Solitary Horseman were 
elected as representatives in Congress. The election 
was held in Madisonville before daylight, on the morn- 
ing of October 28th, 1863, and the barkeeper of Mer- 
ritt's Hotel administered the oath of office. ' It may 
seem strange that the Chief Magistrate of a great State 
should be hard up ; but such, nevertheless, was the 
case : for the Treasurer, the Honest Jew, stole all the 
money, and ran away. I therefore called a council of 
State, and addressed them as follows : 

" Brother dignitaries of the Commonwealth of Loui- 
siana ! called, as all of us were, by the unanimous suf- 
frages and sufferings of our fellow-citizens, to uphold 
the dignity and power of the State, and to dispose of 
the public revenue according to the dictates of our own 
consciences, it becomes our duty to stand by the ship 
of State in adversity as well as in prosperity. Honest 
poverty has been held as a mark of honor by the wisest 
sages of antiquity ; and if it be in truth an honor, then 
are we entitled to the highest respect^ for there isn't a 



NOVEL EXPEDIENT TO GET MONET. 203 

red in tlie treasury, and it becomes our duty to raise the 
wind. Happily, an honorable way is open for the ac- 
complishment of this most desirable object. I have 
therefore to propose that the Cussed Fool and the Sol- 
itary Horseman shall go to Richmond to get seats in 
Congress, if possible. But for fear they may not suc- 
ceed, I will go with them, and we will collect mileage 
from the Sergeant-at-arms, before their claim is passed 
upon by the House. This will yield a very handsome 
sum, and we will divide it equally among the various 
officers of the State." 

This proposition was received with loud shouts of ap- 
proval ; and accompanied by the two members of Con- 
gress and the Idiotic Boy (Lieutenant Governor), we set 
out for the great Confederate capital. I journeyed over 
hills and mountains and through valleys, until I ar- 
rived in a big swamp, which, I was told, was formerly 
known as tlie Chickahominy Bottoms, but is now called 
Strategy Swamp, because a whole army got swamped 
while practising strategy in those gloomy regions. I 
sank to my middle every time I stepped ; and the Idi- 
otic Boy informed me that it only required a siege of 
the malarious fever to ruin my constitution and com- 
plete my military education. 

I then debouched from the woods, and, lo and be- 
hold ! the city of Jeff. Davis loomed upon my vision. 
" O great Confederate Jerusalem !" I exclaimed, " as all 
the Honest Jews shall some day be gathered together in 
Palestine, so sliall all the Confederates soon swarm with- 
in thy gates, when Meade, Grant, and Gilmore im- 
piously crowd, tliem up in one place. And as the foot- 
print of Moham^med is preserved in a sacred temple, so 



204: THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

shall the mark of mj Confederate shoes form a shrine 
for future generations ?" 

We then advanced to the city by the right flank, and 
I immediately visited the Executive Mansion, and had 
an interview with Jeff. Davis. Jeff, was glad to see 
me, but said he had been a little more near-sighted than 
usual since Chickamauga. I told him we came as rep- 
resentatives of a great principle. 

" What principle is that ?" asked Jeff. 

" Mileage," I answered. 

He said he hoped we would succeed, and that the 
best plan would be to get the Clerk of the House 
drunk, and hire him to place the names of the two 
Congressmen on the roll before any objection was 
raised ; and then to apply immediately to the Sergeant- 
at-arms for mileage. 

It is a melancholy fact that the human mind is so 
constituted, in some instances, that it is open to the 
voice of duty and justice only after it has received the 
inducement of a liberal fee. And it is providential, 
perhaps, that the Louisiana Delegation had no money ; 
otherwise we might have been tempted to try to bribe 
the Clerk. But we found this unnecessary. The Clerk 
was anxious to be re-elected, and in order to accomplish 
this he determined not to enroll the names of any but 
those who would vote for him, and a promise to vote 
for him was all that was needed to secure a place on 
the roll of members. 

The great and momentous day at last arrived for 
Congress to assemble. The Louisiana Delegation 
looked pale and haggard, but I told them I would stand 
by them until they got their mileage. We approached 



the Sergeant-at-arms, wliere, in accordance with in- 
structions, the Cussed Fool and the SoHtary Horseman 
fell prostrate before that official dignitary, and in tears 
and lamentations sufficient to move a house, implored 
him to pay them their mileage. The Sergeant-at-arms 
replied that he didn't see it, and I haven't seen it yet 
myself. 

The Louisiana Delegation then arose to its feet, and 
we all went into the House of Representatives together, 
when the following proceedings occurred : 

Mr. Stevens said : I ask to have the credentials of 
the persons claiming to be representatives from Louisi- 
ana read. 

Clekk vjnst drunk enough to be funny). — The Clerk 
will gratify the curiosity of the gentleman. [Laughter 
by the Idiotic Boy, the Louisiana Delegation, and me.] 

E'ow came the greatest triumph of my life ; for the 
Clerk proceeded to read, in a clear and distinct tone of 
voice, the credentials which I had prepared by four 
weeks' labor, and a careful study of Webster's Diction- 
ary and the Black Code of Louisiana : 

CREDENTIALS. 

I, James Buchanan Macpherson, Governor of the State of Lou- 
isiana, duly and legally elected by the voters of said State, in pur- 
suance of my twenty-second letter to the Era, and the Constitu- 
tion and laws, and inaugurated by taking the oath administered 
by the barkeeper of Merritt's Hotel, do certify that at an election 
begun and held in Madisonville, before daylight, on the morning of 
the twenty-eighth day of October, 1863, in accordance with Masonic 
Hall, for the purpose of electing Representatives from said State 
and raising the wind, the following named persons were regularly 
elected to represent said State in said Congress for the term of 
two years from the fourth day of March, 1863, namely : 



206 TIJE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

• 

The Cussed Fool. 

The Solitary Horseman. 

All of whom were regularly elected m accordance with the 
Constitution and Laws of said State of Louisiana, as by me con- 
strued and interpreted. 

In testimony whereof, I, James Buchanan Macpherson, Author 
of the Confederate Arithmetic, Traveller through the Louisiana 
Lowlands Low, Clergyman, Poet, Philosopher, Plato of the Con- 
federacy, Warrior, great Southern Blower, and Governor, elected 
as aforesaid, do hereby commission said persons, so elected as 
aforesaid and duly sworn, to represent said State in the said Con- 
federate Congress, on condition that they shall pay my hotel bills 
as long as 1 remain in Eichmond, and divide their mileage with 
me honorably and justly ; and I do hereby give these credentials 
in evidence of their fair and square election ; and I do hereby af- 
fix my private seal of office, my predecessor and friend, Moore, 
having carried off the great seal, and having had no opportunity to 
send it back, in consequence of General Banks chasing him like 
the devil last spring, from which he has never recovered ; and 
my said private seal I have hereunto affixed this twentieth day of 
November, in the third year of Jeff. Davis, and the year of our 
Lord, 1863. 

t —^ J James BrcnANAN MACPnEEsox, 

( Jl^ } Governor of the State of Louisiana. 

My private seal, wliicli I affixed to the above docu- 
ment, is the picture of a jackass grabbing at a crib be- 
yond his reach. 

Stevens' moved to strike the name of the Cussed Fool 
and tlie Solitary Horseman from the roll of members ; 
but was induced to withdraw it, and we proceeded to 
the election of a speal^ier. The Louisiana Delegation 
voted for a candidate of their owm, and thus succeeded 
in getting their names in the Congressional proceedings. 
The future historian, the unborn Herodotus, will be 
struck with the appearance of those euj)honious names, 
and he will also be struck by the fact that they never 
appear afterward. 



BROOKS SUSTAINS THE LOUJSIANIANS. 207 

After tlie election of a speaker, the members went 
up to be sworn ; and now there was a row with the 
Louisiana Delegation. Stevens objected to the Louisi- 
ana Delegation, and Brooks came forward, prompt 
as ever, to vindicate the cause of innocence and justice. 
He said that he hoped the House would go on in the ordi- 
nary way, and swear in every man, woman, and child 
that applied for admission. It was hard work to stand, 
and he thought the gentlemen from Louisiana should 
have seats. If, after admitting them and paying their 
mileage, it should be found desirable to get rid of them, 
the}^ could be kicked out or put out in any manner the 
House should determine. He knew nothing of the 
rights of the members from Louisiana, and he didn't 
care a damn, so long as they were good Confederates 
and would vote on his side. The country was rich and 
could afford to pay. These gentlemen had come a long 
distance for seats, and it would not be in accordance 
with the rales of chivalry or hospitality to keep them 
standing, except on one of the standing committees. 
Memminger could easily print off a few more treasury 
notes. [Applause by the Louisiana Delegation.] 

Stevens. — These credentials are no credentials at all. 
Who has ever heard of this pretended Gov. Macpherson ? 
[Yoice — " Eead The Eea."] By what right does he 
claim that title ? There has been no election in Louisi- 
ana, and how was it possible for anybody to get elected ? 

Brooks moved that Macpherson's Twenty-second Let- 
ter, containing an account of the State election be read 
for the information of the ignoramus who had just taken 
his seat. He would there find an official account of the 
election and its results. But it made no difference 



208 THE MACPHEESON LETTEES. 

whether there had been an election or not. He put it 
upon the ground of courtesy. These gentlemen had 
taken a great deal of trouble, and he believed if thej 
were refused admittance others would be deterred from 
asking for seats in the House. 

Stevens moved to refer the members from Louisiana 
to the committee on credentials. 

Allen moved to lay the Delegation on the table. 
Lost. Stevens's motion was then carried ; the banner of 
freedom and truth trailed in the dust ; the free-born 
citizens of Louisiana were virtually expelled from the 
House. From this moment, in my opinion, dates the 
visible decline of public virtue in the Confederacy. 
What encouragement is there, henceforth, for patriots 
ambitious to go to Congress ? I^one ! What way is 
there left open by which a pennyless Governor like me 
can pay his hotel bills, if his friends get nothing to 
divide with him ? None ! 

The knees of the Cussed Fool knocked together, and 
it was in vain that I strove to administer consolation 
and ho])e to his wounded and bleeding soul. I asked 
him to show that the spirit of a man had some place in 
him yet, and to resign himself to his fate. 

" Eesign !" said he, brightening up ; " that is a good 
idea. I will resign myself," and immediately he wrote 
his resignation as member of Congress, which I accepted 
on the spot, and notified the Speaker of the fact in 
writing. But that leather-headed ignoramus said the 
Cussed Fool was no member at all, and he didn't see 
how he could resign a seat which he never possessed. 
Therefore, he would not trouble the House with the 
matter. 



PEOPOSALS FOR MATRIMONY. 209 

The question then arose how we were to get away 
from the city without paying our bills. We finally hit 
upon the expedient of having every thing charged to 
the Solitary Horseman, who still remains in Richmond 
waiting at the door of the House patiently, day by day, 
for the Committee on Credentials to let him in. He 
hopes by his patient conduct and meek looks, to arouse 
the pity of the House ; and praying that he may suc- 
ceed, I remain, 

Yours, officially, 

James B. Macpherson. 

P. S. — Jan. 1st, 1864. — This being leap year, sealed 
proposals for matrimony will be received until the 
thirty-first day of December next. 

J. B. M. 



THE END. 



31j.77-2 



